Forget the Turkey: Wild Geese Rum

A relatively and largely unknown range of whiskies that I'd like to take a look at are those from Wild Geese. These distributors are already fairly well known for their range of Irish Whiskies and in 2010 entered the rum game.


The Wild Geese Golden Rum

This rum is a blend of 5 different rums ranging from 3 to 5 years from pretty much all over (Guyana, Trinidad, Jamaica, St Lucia Barbados) and conjures in my mind a salty seadog travelling around in his frigate filling his barrel as he goes along... a maritime Solera if you will. Of course this is played upon in the labelling with a dark night sea scene, but also showing some fairly Carribbean influences in the crystal skull that takes centre stage.

This is the entry bottle in Wild Geese's rum range, it has received awards all over and is priced quite fairly at £18.75 from the Whisky Exchange, around (or less than) standard supermarket rums such as Captain Morgan, Appleton, Bacardi and Sailor Jerry.

On the nose it is very sugared with caramel, butterscotch, vanilla, pineapple and sweet spice. This is nice, very pleasant and easy going, not hugely complex, but very good for the age of the rums.

On the palate the sweetness continues with the caramel and fudge coming through strongly, there is a good deal of spice there too. The spirit is not harsh by any stretch, being bottled at 37.5% helps this and whilst it might not have the depth of flavour and complexity to be enjoyed hugely on its own the lightness and easy palatability of this rum makes it really great for cocktails such as a Mojito.

Ingredients

2 parts of The WIld Geese Golden Rum
1 part of fresh lime juice
Half part of sugar syrup
Soda Water
Fresh mint

Garnish

Fresh mint sprig

Method

Pour lime, sugar, mint and rum into a highball glass, add
a splash of soda and cracked ice.
Gently stir than top up with more ice, finally garnish with
mint sprig.

The Wild Geese Premium Rum

This Premium Rum is a little bit pricier than the standard Golden, firstly to give you some added value you get some lovely bling attached to the bottle adorning the skull on the bottle's shoulder. On top of this the rums that go into the blend (Bajan, Guyanese, and Jamaican) have been aged for up to eight years and so there should be some added complexity over the Golden and is bottled moderately higher, at 40%. The Premium Rum is available from The Whisky Exchange for £25.75 which again isn't a whole lot.

On the nose there is a very similar vanilla and caramel fudge note with apricot and marzipan on top of this. Additionally there are spices, orange, cinnamon, peaches and a slightly herbal note. This is deeper with far more complexity than the Golden Rum and honestly probably punches above its weight in comparison to the supermarket rums available at this price.

On the palate this is very soft, round and mellow with burnt sugar coming through first before sweet spices come through, more than expected. Orange and vanilla are quite prominent with some pineapple popping up as well.

This is a pretty good rum, better than most at the price level, but not quite premium in my book. This is a really very good mixing rum that I wouldn't be dissapointed at all for the price.