The Melbourne Rum Club got off to a flying start in 2011, with over 35 members in attendance at the Golden Monkey bar in Melbourne’s CBD. The Club meets on the first Monday of every month to enjoy and learn about rum and cocktails.
Sponsored by Brown Forman and Appleton Estate Rum, the night marked the first gathering of the club since November's end of the year “Shipwrecked” party. Snacks as well as a free drink were offered to all Rum Club members, this time in a complimentary Appleton Estate tiki mug!
Linus Schaxmann, the brand representative for Brown Forman, took us through the interesting history of rum and the evolution of Tiki culture with slight emphasis on one of the important cocktails of that era, the Mai Tai, which appropriately was my complimentary drink on arrival.
Going through the history of rum we begun our sampling with molasses, followed by Appleton Estate V/X, Appleton Estate 8 Year Old, Appleton Estate Extra and finally the spectacular Appleton Estate 21 Year Old.
After the presentation, we had a chance to ask our questions where one of the more interesting questions of the bunch was “Does Appleton make a single barrel rum?”
The answer is yes. You can find a single barrel rum in the Edwin Charley collection from J Wray & Nephew, however these bottlings, including the single barrel rum, are usually reserved for dignitaries visiting Jamaica.
The 4 rums are blended by the Master Blender Joy Spence (single barrel of course remains single barrel), bottled in hand blown venetian glass and represent expressions from the rum life cycle. Whoever asked the question, if you can find these bottles, I would recommend getting them for your collection.
After the questions people were left to enjoy the cocktails, snacks and conversations, looking forward to another Rum Club.
See you next week!
Remember to check out the pictures from the party on FaceBook!
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