The Sipping News

Tom Hudson had always been a wine man.

In fact, he even opened a high-end restaurant — Domaine Hudson in Wilmington, Del. — built on the premise that the wine list always comes first, even before the menu. And in the early days of the restaurant, if you dropped by and ordered a bloody mary or Manhattan to enjoy at the bar while waiting for your table, you would have been well advised to have brought your own mixings.

"I think we might be able to fix you a basic martini," a young barkeep once told me hopefully while polishing the huge stock of wine glasses. "Until a few years ago, I had never even tasted most spirits," Hudson says with his trademark sheepish grin.

An accountant by trade, he felt the need to get away from it all one day and asked a travel executive as she was closing shop where he could fly to the following morning. He let her make the choice and ended up in Negril, Jamaica the next day. Hudson never quit going there, and recently he sold his successful eatery (which is maintaining his name) to build what he says is a nondescript house on his Caribbean paradise and mostly chill out.

And so he came to embrace one spirit — rum. "All the people I met down there drank rum," he says by explanation, but Hudson saw no need to add fruit juice or Coke to it. After all, would he mix anything with his Colgin cabernet or his Le Cadeau pinot noir?

Within a few short years, Hudson put together an excellent amateur's collection of sipping rums during his travels and perusal of spirits shops in Wilmington and New York. He also received gifts from patrons and friends who decided to become enablers of his passion.

So the other day, Tom told me he was tired of hearing me write about high-priced cognacs and other brandies. Come over and drink rum with me, was his invitation. It sounded like a great way to while away a weekday afternoon when there were no football games on television.

Evenly spaced on Hudson's dining room table were 24 open bottles of rum, which he had culled from his collection of more than 100 bottles. "Hey, mon!" he said, greeting me with a spreadsheet of all his rums with information on their prices, provenances, and purchase data. (Did I mention that Hudson is an accountant?)

"After a while, you can tell which country they come from by their terroir," he said excitedly. Rum terroirs? (Did I mention he was a wine man?)

Now, I've sipped and slurped a number of rums in my time, but not this many variations at once. Twenty-four bottles and a least three repeats of his reggae track later, we were in agreement on many of the rums.

The Havana Club 7 Años from Cuba had the smoky, charred barrel flavors of a light scotch blend. So did the Vizcaya Cuban Formula Cask No. 21 from the Dominican Republic, although it was much smoother with a great mouthfeel. The Ron Zacapa Solera 23 from Guatemala managed to contain floral, woody-funky, and conifer notes all in the same glass.

The Old Monk Very Old Vatted 7 Year from India was, well, interesting, with wafts of white simple syrup and nail polish. The Appleton Estate Masters Legacy was one of those flavors that people could love or hate — on the edge with earthy, goat-cheese notes. The Barbancourt Estate Reserve 15 Year from Haiti drove Hudson to search for words. "Band-Aids," he proclaimed, then added, "The pinotage of rums."

From St. Croix, the Cruzan Single Barrel had all the complexities of an old wine — cedar, smoke, a little sweetness, and a touch of bitters. From St. Kitts, Brinley Gold Shipwreck Spiced Rum 4 Years tasted peaty and had a candy-corn sweetness. "Most of the people I drink with in Jamaica won't touch flavored rums," Hudson shrugged.

The worst of the bunch was the Berry Bros. and Rudd St. Lucia Aged 11 Years, which tasted and smelled like a Calvados lab experiment gone dark.

Surprisingly, there were three rums that made both of our Top 5 lists. The El Dorado 12 Year Old from Guyana had delicious wood sweetness, with both caramel and anise in the finish. "There's a lot going on in there," Hudson agreed with his nose firmly in the glass. The other two mutual favorites were from producers I had visited earlier this year — Ron Abuelo in Panama, whose Centuria is sweet and smooth with no burn and golden, honeyed flavors and Plantation 20th Anniversary Extra Old with roots in Barbados but whose owner, Cognac Ferrand, is located in France. (Did I mention that I love rums that bear a resemblance to fine cognacs?)