The Straight Up Features
Gosling's Black Seal Rum

One thing I do like about rums is their rough and tumble reputation. Rum was the liquor of the adventurer, the privateer. Cheap, strong, even dangerous, rum has never been a 'class' drink. You don't drink rum to impress your boss or mingle with high society. Rum drinkers are fringe runners by stereotype. At the same time, you can't really capture that mysticism very effectively with most of the more popular name brands. Lets face it, Bacardi and even Cap'n Morgans lack a certain flare needed to make you feel like a bloodthirsty pirate come to port near the plantations of the new world. Fortunately, I have recently discovered a rum that I feel really embraces that attitude in both its flavor and its history.

Gosling Brothers, LTD. began as a business founded by James Gosling in 1806 around Bermuda when, after a rather hazardous voyage, he and his family decided that pressing on to America was an unnecessary risk. In 1860 they first began producing barrels of "Old Rum" which sold straight from the barrel. This tradition kept up until WWI, at which time they got the notion to bottle the stuff in old champagne bottles. The name 'black seal' comes originally from the black wax used to seal these bottles with, the logo comes from the obvious play on words. Now, for my money, that's the kind of history a good rum should have.

To call Gosling's a dark rum is not doing it justice. To call it a black rum would be more accurate. When you first pick up the bottle, you think it's manufactured from a dark stained glass, and then you realize that the bottle itself is clear. The rum's just that dark. It has moved right into the realm of the opaque. If you mix it with coke, I swear the coke gets darker.

The flavor is something else. One of my biggest problems with many dark rums is that sweet flavor, the sickeningly sweet, almost maple syrup flavor. Even in rums I like, there can just be times where you can't handle that kind of sweet load on top of a drunk. I won't say that Black Seal is entirely without sweetness, but it matches it nicely with a noticably bitter initiation. The rum has a sharp attack that settles down into a more content sweetness a few moments later. Other than that, it's a thick, rich powerful rum that by god makes you want to assault some hapless new world village, swimming to shore, cutting a few choice throats, setting fire to a house or two, and then making off with some governor's loot and his daughter, both of which you enjoy, along with your bloodthirsty crew, later over a roaring fire while singing horrid songs. For my money, you'll have a hard time finding a better rum in the states. Gosling's easily is my favorite rum so far.

Key facts about Black Seal :

Alcohol Content : 40%. Seriously, they need to make a 100 proof version of this.

Age : 3 years.

Price (.750) : $18-20. A day or two at sea and you'll have stolen enough to pay for a case.

Notes : Goslings is a room tempurature drink. It makes a poor mixer. You're really wasting it if you don't drink it straight.

Final Standing : Completely Pissed.