I was hoping Old Monk would have made an appearance 😂 It’s the rum responsible for enabling poor decisions, lifelong friendships and formative experiences for many growing up in India.

It’s amazing how certain spirits can really transport you and change everything you’d been feeling before that moment

This video was fantastic. Love you and loved hearing your honest journey into rum. Made me nostalgic for my own journey into spirits. Well done 👍

I really enjoyed this one!

I swore Rum Bar had an Agricole note in it, im glad to hear it does have cane juice in it. Proves my pallet is working.

I'm not as far along on my rum journey as you are but mine started off similar to yours. First: Malibu First Real Rum: Brugal 1888 Hated: Diplomatico Rererva First Sipping: El Dorado 15 Favorite: Bira South Pacific 12 year

This is a spectacular video, well worth the wait. I never tried malibu and thought it was a cream liqueur because of coconut milk. The comment section sharing their rum journey is also a fun read. I started my rum journey mixing wray and nephew with sorrel during christmas in jamaica. Then mixing pepsi or coke with appleton signature.

Aside from Cruzan and such, my first big rum experience was running a big tasting of "premium" rums for a bunch of friends circa 2010 or so. Which, in practice, ended up a battle between Neisson Reserve and Appleton 12 versus a bunch of sugar-bombs. It was kind of a rough night, to be honest... 😂

my rum journey progression has been relatively quick thanks to the rum community and content creators like you. i probably would have taken years and years to get into cane juice rum if not for your videos and buzz online. there are countless rums to try, and i honestly love that i will never try every last one. the journey is about the rums that find you. cheers to exploration and spreading the good word about rum, and to you for sharing this with us.

My rhum journey would be, Rhum Agricole ( because I live in France) then appleton 12 and dos maderas when a I tarted sipping rums then cask strenght rums and now I love all the rums in the world 😀 well almost..

Nice video! very interesting, good story telling 😁

It’s amazing how similar our journeys have been. Mine started in 1999 with Malibu (but in a very different way). I was working on clearing the sale of Seagram to Diageo through the FTC at the time and the agency had focused on the rum market. So I got Seagram to send me every rum they distributed. It was largely Captain Morgan, but they also had the “Rare Rum Collection”. Sitting in my office were bottles of El Dorado and Appleton (and who knows what else). I never tried them because the agency focused on Malibu and Parrot Bay. That was it for a decade, when I tried 1888 at a bar outside of DC. And I loved it. But it didn’t covert me. Then sometime around 2018, Drinkhacker gave Kirk & Sweeney 23 an A+. I tracked down a bottle and fell in love. But I really wasn’t (and still am not) someone who drinks spirits neat. I got into cocktails around the same time and began researching rum and found Foursquare. I thought a bunch of ECSs, but it was the Real McCoy 12 in a corn n oil that did it. I began making all sorts of rum cocktails. Then you inspired me to order a daiquiri with clairin. They were out of sajous but had le rocher. And it was deep love. That led to rum fire and eleve sous bois, etc. So thank you!!!!

Ok, so my Rum/Rhum journey is unusual. My mother's family is from Martinique, and my father was firmly in the Navy Rum fan club. So I started with Clement Blanc and my French grandfather making me a Ti Punch (with extra sugar and lime) when I was probably about 12. From my Dad, we then jump to Pussers Gunpowder Strength (his drink of choice) and also a taste for hot buttered rum. Fast forward to more recent times, and I would point to the following as rums, which have really stayed with me, and illustrated my journey. Ron Cubay 1870, just the best Cuba has to offer (I feel sorry for my US pals who can not get their hands on this). SBS Single Orgin WPH Jamican Cane Juice. The perfect marriage of Jamican Funk and Agricole. Savanna HERR St Aubin Sauternes Finish SBS 1998 Guyana Skeldon SWR a trip down memory lane to the old heavy Demerara Rums so loved by my father. HSE's new Foret bottles

Fantastic story and video!

Great video, I really enjoyed this one. Angostura, in my case the 1919, was the first rum I bought when I realised there must be more to rum than Bundy, would have been around 2016. It was a great entry level sipper, all vanilla and caramel. Several years past before I bought it again but it had changed, it was now vegetal, grassy, stalky. Not sure how/why that happened.

I did a little Malibu, it was kinda of fun to throw in a soda or whatever (though barely alcoholic) can't say it was ever one of my "go-tos" though. I think the first rum that really got my attention as something tasty and interesting, when I was probably 22 or so was... Kraken, lol. I haven't had it in a _long_ time, I have no idea what I'd think about it now, but I it's the first liquor that I remember really enjoying without mixing. maybe I should track down another bottle, see how it holds up. I doubt it would be offensive, just maybe not as exciting these days. I actually quite enjoyed my first taste of agricole. while not the same, it really reminds me of tequila. I'm not a big tequila drinker or anything, but I made peace with the agave musk a while ago (there were some highly regrettable college experiences, but I got past it), so it didn't really phase me. now I get excited every time I see a drink recipe calling for agricole. I need to find more places I can use it.

Your enthusiasm led me to start collecting clairins last year. I have 4 which are all great, but the Sajous remains my true love. And tasting it in a Caipirinha was a quasi religious experience for me. Only the Rumfirewalker comes close to that, kinda. Thank you so much for this journey and for your dedication to the spirit

Great video, thanks for sharing. That drink was a revelation for me as well. I had been into the Clairins for maybe a year after friends introduced me to it, but I only had one or maybe two cocktails with them until finding Shannon’s, fairly recently. Now I crave more. Try a cobra’s fang with a full pour of the Communal. The Clairin drop at SHC is also excellent. Need a recipe for that!

The absence of the Sajous in the background was a clear clue of what would be the "favorite rum"

I love hearing your rum story. Thanks for sharing it with us!

Hmm, I'd be a bit skeptical at anything coming from Haiti right now. Not sure their quality control or transparency would be up to snuff.

Foursquare 2004 sparked my conversion from bourbon only guy to the delicious world of rum…still to this day it’s the greatest rum I’ve ever tasted

My rum history is as follows: 1989 - 2021: Bacardi & Coke. Nothing else, ever. You could say I've had a few bottles of Bacardi Carta Blanca. 2021: Found Spike's Breezeway Cocktail Hour on KZfaq and fell in love with Tiki drinks and got interested in the rums as well. 2021 - Now: Lots of favorites in the Jamaican funky rums. I hate Bacardi Carta Blanca in anything. Learning a lot from your channel.

Wow this is so interesting! Watching and listening to someone who's clearly found his calling, going about it both knowledgeably (which should be a word if it isn't) and enthusiastically is one thing; learning how that person got to that point is, at least to me, on a whole different level. I'm actually interrupting the video to type this comment, and the main point I can't stress enough is this: **NEVER** be ashamed for realizing aspects of your primal being. It is completely healthy to want to be seen and admired -- to **some** extent which, from where I'm standing, you're far from exceeding. What's more, it obviously sent you on a trajectory where you truly became an authority, a refined, sophisticated connoisseur on the subject. And now the whole (online) world has a chance to learn about a fascinating subject, share your enthusiasm, and become knowledgeable enthusiasts as well. Had you repressed that "narcissist" urge, none of all that would have happened, and the world would be a less interesting place for it. The fact that you can also put your storytelling chops to good use doesn't hurt, either. Also, being that self-aware is a blessing all by itself. Most people just act blindly on their urges or are so completely walled-up in their self-devaluating conditioning as to continually repress themselves on a reflex, never amounting to anything beyond average, making themselves and the people around them miserable. Which is what it is, I guess, nothing against worker bees, but average doesn't move humanity forward. You don't light a lamp and put it beneath a bowl. Instead, you put it on a stand so you see where you're pouring the good stuff. 😎🥂

Coming from the whiskey world the rum that got me into sipping was the brugal 1888! Thought it was so good and got it cause it was on sale! The rum thay blew me away and completely got me hooked was Appleton Estate 12! To this day its my comfort rum. Always available and always affordable!

Much love Harminder! Thanks for sharing your journey….even the parts involving Malibu. 😂 My journey started as a scotch enthusiast that wanted to branch out so I started researching where to start and tried Appleton 12 and hated it…..went back to researching and tried Hampden 8 and loved it!! Studied more and next up was Doorly’s 14…..loved it!! Hampden and Foursquare are still my two favorite rum distilleries and I do think my journey has been helped greatly by watching your content. Keep up the great work my friend!!

My own Rum Journey takes me from: 1. Drinking Malibu with Jolly Ranchers in the basement of my Mom's house when my buddy smuggled a bottle in one night 2. Bringing back a bottle of Pampero Aniversario when I visited Venezuela the first time. It's where my wife is from. Libre Venezuela 3. Santa Teresa Solera 1796 - Had this in an "Old Fashioned" at a Christmas Party a few years back and realized that not every Rum drink had to be a fruit and sugar bomb concoction 4. Hamilton 86/151 - Just about any tiki/tropical cocktail I mix these days has either a split base with Hamilton's Demerara 86 or a float of the 151 5. Rhum J.M. - Terrior Volcanique. Finally was able to grab a bottle of this from a local liquor store. Here I am gladly sipping aged Cane Juice Rum in a way I usually reserved for Bourbons

That St. George rhum is a trip. Hoping they make it again sometime (though they say they never will)

Great content. I got lucky in my rum journey because a great friend started me off right with a few tastes of cocktailing bottles. Here are my key 5: 1. Plantation OFTD - The first rum I had that made me rethink the category in college after my friend passed me a pour. (Hate the company now) 2. Rum Fire - My friend got into cocktailing, and this was the most jarring flavor experience I'd had in my entire life up until that point. 3. Clairin Casimir Ansyen - 36mo sherry cask - The first rum that made me realize there was better value in rum than in Scotch after going heavily into Scotch for a year and ignoring the category. 4. Hampden Great House 2021 - Taught me rum can best all other spirits categories outright in quality. 5. Blackadder 1998 Bellevue at 3 Dots and a Dash - Rum is best when shared and discussed with friends.

So this is gonna sound like a lie or a stretch of the imagination but I was thinking about your channel while driving this morning and thought to myself "I I meet him again I gotta ask what his first rum was?" Then I look, and here we are. Awesome content, good sir. This channel is gonna grow and stir up the rum revolution.

Gosling's Black Seal in iced tea was my first intro to rum and I still, unashamedly, love it to this day.

"...and on my rum journey, I then faced the final boss." (chains pull back, giant rusty lock bursts off, ground shakes, caged doors swing open and from a huge cloud of smoke. Rum Fire emerges)

"...and some of the things you're going to find out about me you're going to wish you hadn't." "...and this was the style of rum I made the most in my prison toilet."

No video for Black Tot Day ? I'm tellin Mum !!!

This is a fun episode. My first bottles were Doorleys 12, Appleton Signature, Mt Gay Eclipse, Rhum Barbancourt and I think some Sailor Jerry's. The Doorleys was the first spirit that I actually enjoyed on its own and got me down the rum rabbit hole.

Thought this was funny. Arminder talking about how he had this feeling to show off all his cool rums on his barcart and saying he hopes he isn't like that anymore. Yet he's just constantly showing off all his cool rums to all of us here 😂

I think Angostura 5- and 7-year are the best "bang for your buck" sipping rums out there. You've got me interested in trying their pricier stuff too. Great stuff as usual, cheers

My rum story in bottles would have to be 1. Bacardi: 17yr old me trying to be different than everyone drinking whiskey and getting blackout drunk on a bottle for New Years 2. Kraken: Was somewhat into whiskey and beer at this point and thought this was what Rum was 3. Bayou Rum: Local rum, finally learning what a rum is 4. Appleton 12: Getting more into rum with this easy to find Jamaican 5. Rum Fire: And now we've made it here thanks to this channel Cheers

Nice concept piece and a nice bit of insight into who you are. I actually came to rum as a complement/substitute to whiskies, when the bourbon boom happened and a bunch of my longtime go to labels suddenly because unobtanium. BTW, the Angostura is a 12 year product. Cheers.

This was GREAT. Loved getting to hear your bio via rum. (Your rumography?) I was at Hobson's Choice, a little dive rum bar in SF, and asked the bartender to help me out. I don't remember what he poured me, probably something along the lines of a Doorly's, but that's when I started to realize the RANGE rum had. And that came in really handy when during the pandemic I got bored of whiskey ;-) I've gravitated towards tiki because I like to make a lot of my own ingredients. Big bold bottles like Smith & Cross, Hamilton 151, and Hamilton Pot Still Jamaican Black are important for me to have around. When I see you picking apart a rum like a clockmaker wearing a loupe I think I'll probably never have a palate that sensitive, but I gotta say, the bottle of le Rocher I have sitting out in my kitchen right now may be the game changer. Both my spouse and I walk around that bottle with a kind of reverence (and dread as it gets emptier and emptier). I'm still more into a ti' punch than straight, but I see where this is headed! Thanks for all the great content and for opening up some new horizons for us.

Do you have a list of Bay Area bottle shops that are good for rum newbs?

I think it went something like this, but there was a lot of other stuff in there and I absolutely cannot say I have a definitive favourite - it changes as I learn and experience new spirits...and that's why I love the category so much. 1. Sailor Jerrys / Capt. Morgan's 2. Diplomatico / Zacapa 23 3. Havana Club 7 / Mount Gay XO (Allen Smith) 4. Foursquare Criterion (huge leap here at UK Rum Fest 2017 or 2018) 5. Colors of Rum, Guadeloupe 1998 (My pick at this years UK Rum Show)

Really appreciate your journey. It’s helpful to know that people aren’t necessarily born with a palate! Hard to remember my first rum, but I have hazy memories of Parrot Bay and Sailor Jerry. I haven’t been drinking rum for long, but I remember having a Mai Tai at the Bali Hai a decade ago and that experience has stuck with me. It recently resurfaced and I’ve been enjoying making tiki drinks at home leading to a bottle of Smith and Cross, probably my first non-Bacardi rum. Your videos on different rums have been very helpful, and have helped me branch out to things like Rum Fire, volcanique, and clairin. A recent trip to St. Lucia made me appreciate the locality of different rum producers and their rums. My palate isn’t quite there yet, but I’ve started to try to taste rums neat and have been enjoying Ti punches a lot.

Awesome getting to see others rum journey and how they got to where they are. I definitely need to make that port au prince.

I purchased the Clairin Sajous a while ago based on one of your videos, it really is such a funky rum. As a whiskey/wine drinker myself, I didn't really know what to make of the sajous. It's funky, complex. Didn't love it, didn't hate it. But as you mentioned, it's really good in a cocktail. Would love to try the one you talked about. Think you can share that recipe? Would love to try it.

Hey all- so this is a long one. To help it go by faster, here’s a fun drinking game: take a shot every time I say “honestly” or “if I’m being real”

have you made a video about the various books on rum (industry, history, etc.) and rum cocktails that you like to read, use the recipes from, or recommend others read?

You want numbering that will drive OCD crazy? There are 16 Compass Box 'Canto Cask' unique scotch bottlings - they're numbered 06 (UK), 10 (Denmark), 15 (Spain), 17 (Japan and Greece), 20 (Germany), 27 (South Africa), 35 (Italy), 36 (The Netherlands), 37 (New Zealand), 46 (USA), 47 (France), 48 (Germany), 50 (Denmark), 123 (France), 124 (France), and 125 (South Africa).

Doc and Arminder with a “Fan” 🤣🤣🤣🤣 got Derek good

Love anything Neisson