Eat at Joe's!

Lost Spirits "Navy Style Rum"

First impression on taking out the black plastic stopper: brown sugar, even before the alcohol shows up.  On further sniffs, I start to think molasses instead of brown sugar, but I'm not sure what my nose thinks the difference is.  Bottle is tall and slender-ish, with a long neck and no punt to speak of, just a minor concavity below a really thick bottom.  Label is a parchment color with dark blue and black writing and ornate ornamentation, including a skull, a naked young boy, and a sailing ship.  :)  It's quite attractive, and states 68% ABV.  

Spirit (maybe two teaspoons in an open-form glass) is dark brown in the bottle and glass, but not devoid of transparency.  More brown sugar on the nose, with a hint of maple.  Swirling brings out some smoke on the nose and drops spilled on my shorts.  :)  Now that I get the smoke, I get a lot of it.  There's a sharp smell I'm having trouble putting my finger on, or (again) it might be the alcohol fooling me.  If I said it was something chemical, you'd think I meant it negatively, and I don't, so let's just move on.  :)

First sip: I think my blood pressure just went up about five points.  ;)  This spirit is not meek.  The brown sugar/molasses is right up front with the alcohol, and lingers.  Something like the saline/black olive I mentioned in my St. George post previously wants to come out here, but reminds me more (and again, I risk turning someone off by saying something I don't mean as a negative at all) of iodine, perhaps?  There's a lot of stuff going on in here, as one would expect.

Risking hell and damnation, I thin the spirit out with drops of cold filtered water, and approximately double the volume of liquid in the glass.  If anything, it smells sweeter than before.  On tasting, the rum doesn't change too much with the water.  It's obviously weaker, but about the only other generalization I can make is that the organic-y flavors are damped down and the mineral-ly flavors are exposed a bit more.  

I really wish it were easy to get some of this, or any other Lost Spirits products.  The North Carolina ABC WWW site shows zero products by this distiller.  You'll have to venture out of the state to pick this up if you live here.  

http://www.lostspirits.net/

St. George "California Agricole Rum"

First impression on taking out the stopper (an artificial cork set in a wooden enlargement): saline black olive. There's a green note under the olive that I assume on further exploration will resolve into the grassy notes this style of rum is known for.  There is of course alcohol in here too, but it doesn't blow the back of your head off.

Spirit is perfectly clear in the bottle. The bottle is also perfectly clear glass, styled like some sort of apothecary container, and a little more squat than the average liquor bottle. Label looks like old currency or certificates, and states 43% ABV.

Poured a couple teaspoons of the spirit into an open-form glass. After a few minutes, the same black olive note is still predominant, with the earlier green note slightly subdued. The beginnings of a sweet smell peek out from underneath. On swirling, a few tiny legs peek out; more swirling brings out lots of very thin legs. The spirit wants to stick to the walls of the glass more than I would have expected.

On first taste, the alcohol and black olive are still there, but the olive is less present than I would have thought.  It's an unaged spirit, but with not quite so much burn as I was expecting.  Maybe my small sips help.  :)  A hint of brown sugar may have just been my mind playing tricks on me.  But some sweetness does come forth, along with a little pepper that I'm having trouble making sure isn't the alcohol burn.

Adding a little cold, filtered water, diluting my remainder down about half-way or a little more: More sweetness comes out, and mouth-filling... well, something pleasantly oleaginous (without any actual fat or oil being present, of course).  Letting it roll around in my mouth, I get more of a drying sensation at the top of my mouth that I noticed before and now realize I was ignoring.  There's a new, pleasant mineral note to go with the drying sensation.  As I finish the last few drops, I realize I'm really looking forward to having a decent amount of this in a real drink.  :)

Edit:  For the North Carolina folks, I unfortunately have not seen this company's spirits at all in local ABC stores (the bottle I have is a gift brought from out of state).  The State ABC site shows three other St. George products, but all of them are gins.  

http://www.stgeorgespirits.com/