I was going to have a bigger post than this, but someone knocked over my motorcycle so I’ve been dealing with insurance stuff all morning. I will try to remedy the post situation later today.

In the meantime…

The Daiquiri is a cocktail that has been a socially acceptable rum drink for over a hundred years and has enough variations to rival the Martini. And in that time it’s come a long way. From humble origins in the small mining town of Daiquiri, Cuba; to the fame and glamour of being associated Hemingway; to the slushy, overproof, sobriety killer gulped down by the rowdy, half-naked college kids on Bourbon Street, New Orleans.

I was going to say something like “Get your shakers ready”, but then I’d be ostracizing a whole group of people. The Blenders.

And while some of the snooty among us look down our noses at the Blenders, you can’t deny that they make up a large percentage of the Daiquiri drinking public.

“Did Hemingway drink his cocktail blended?”, they cry. Maybe, I suppose it depends on who’s story you want to believe. And really, does it matter? Sit down, shut up, and enjoy your damn drink.

So, Blenders, this is your day too. Blend to your heart’s content as long as you remember to share and be nice.

1. ^[1] Image by Mike Fleming via WikiMedia Commons ↩

So the rums I was hoping to review and share with you people were Rhum J.M VSOP, Mocambo 20 year, Zafra Master Reserve 21 year, and Bacardi 1909. I’ve been trying to remember my thoughts on these rums without much luck. I remember I enjoyed them all for different reasons, but I did enjoy them all.

I was really happy with the Bacardi actually. I remember that. I must confess, I’ve been on the “No Bacardi” team for a while so when we got the bottle I joked that it was probably an overpriced repackaging of the standard Bacardi Superior. And, somewhere along the lines our gibes about the potentially awful stuff turned into surprise at how pleasant it was. In fact, in regards to the Bacardi 1909 being good, I remember at least one member of our party chose it as his preferred out of the four.

As for the others… I really only remember the Mocambo 20, and my memory isn’t of the flavor. My memory is of sitting on a sofa with just under half the bottle remaining… and then I proceeded to drink straight from the bottle. And I finished it. I remember that. Kind of. It’s hazy. I remember holding it and it was empty. And my drunken state is probably a testament to the fact that I did, in fact, finish the bottle. That on top of all the other drinking I did that day. From the empty bottle I flash to saying goodbye, a taxi, an angry taxi driver, mumbling incoherently to the faceless people behind the desk at my hotel, misreading my room key, and then waking up the next morning. Huzzah!

So no review from those rums. My apologies to you fine people, and to my liver, and to the employees of the Beverly Wilshire hotel… it’s a lovely hotel by the way… though I wish I’d at least set foot in my room for at least one minute while sober. Yikes.

What I do have are some pictures. I’ve not included most of them. Only some relevant pre-totally-smashed pictures. I’m not in any because I was doing the shooting. Oh well.

The title of the article is promising, but I can’t help but think that they don’t really believe that it’s “rum’s time to shine” since they didn’t put it in the food section where it would be easily found. Instead it’s buried in the Latino section which, if you wanted to find it from the front page, requires scrolling down until you see the “Local” menu on the left, clicking on local and then click on “Latino” at the bottom of the menu on the new page. There’s nothing wrong with being in the Latino section, but if you’re trying to show how rum’s time to shine is now, it would help to make the article visible to more people.