Ron Matusalem Gran Reserva 15YO Solera Rum
- Oct 5, 2015
- 3 min read
So this week we’ve wrapped our lyrical love around a rum that, to be fair, has been sitting on our bloody shelf for far too long untouched. A purchase from the duty free after some dalliances in China and that was on our ‘to review’ list, but somehow got shamefully lost in our vast and all consuming alcoholic sea. But after one night of drastically searching our stash in need of some rum fuelled creative influences to design a logo (the old paying day job!) we grabbed this bottle, dusted it off, threw it in our glass and hoped it didn’t riotously burn away our oesophagus! And wouldn’t you bloody know, it didn’t! Quite the freaking opposite! And our forgotten rum soul is Ron Matusalem Gran Reserva 15 year old Solera Rum. And let us tell you, drinking half the bottle sure does set that creative mind into overdrive! Creative inspiration right there! Anyway, enough of our alcoholic needs, let us tell you why you should be gleefully pouring this bad boy into that prepped up glass of yours.
But for starters, let’s hit you with this bottles boozy facts. First produced in Santiago de Cuba over 130 years ago, until the Alvarez family was exiled in the 60s during the Cuban Revolution, Matusalem is now both produced and bottled in the Dominican Republic. They use the Solera process (Solera is Spanish for ‘on the ground’), a cascading process in which slightly younger rums are blended with older ones. Stored in oak casks, the different aged rums are stacked at a different level: oldest at the bottom, youngest at the top. When the rum is pulled from the lowest barrel it’s replaced with the rums from just above, and so the process continues. This means the age of the rum is an average of the blended years. So, there you go, facts! Let’s get to it!
Noses first, of course! And when you do get yours stuck in, the first aromas to effervescently jump out of that glass are bold notes of intense wood knocking about with sumptuous reams of caramel that’s enough to satisfy all of your protruding rum cravings. Following up in this aroma mix are jaunts of luscious dried fruits, and you’ll find subtle hints of spice kicking about too. Toasted vanilla waltzes in on the end adding some more sweetness to the proceeding and your nose is wonderfully prickled by the spices presence and that good old-fashioned alcohol jab.
But it’s the taste of this rum that really had our inebriated pants in a twist. We were simply like; ‘Man, why the shit have we been ignoring you all these bloody months!” And quite rightfully, we gave ourselves a well-deserved slap round the face! Rich, lavish caramel explodes on your tongue with such sweet creaminess, you wouldn’t be wrong in thinking you’d just eaten a Cadbury’s Curly Wurly before they put the bloody chocolate on! That caramel, that freaking caramel!
Amalgamating with that bad boy is lots of bold, toasted wood pummels and a murmur of dried fruit; prunes maybe and a hint of raisins. It’s quite complex really. Vanilla hangs back till the end, knocking shoulders with a warm hit of cake spices and what excited us no end was the finish. Not only does it hang around like a teenager trying to buy fags at an off licence, it magnificently commandeers your whole mouth with a smooth, hypnotic and seductive burn that cascades it’s way down your throat and straight to your freaking heart! It’s so damn awesome!
But what we love so much about this rum is the streams of caramel that so wonderfully takeover your whole mouth and indulge you in such fervid sweetness, we’re not sure whether to drink it or sleep with it! And the burn, man we like to know we’re having a tot or two and this bottle certainly keeps you heavily aware of that, but in a captivating, bewitching way. It’s such a warming, smouldering sensation that makes us long for the next sip. This is a smooth, toothsome, persistent rum that fills us with both pure infatuation and sheer guilt at leaving it untouched for so long. Don’t you do it, don’t you dare do it! Indulge yourselves in this rum, and indulge deep.
Pick up a bottle here
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