Red Mill Rum Gold Rum

Description

A famous 1930’s rum Brand resurrected and reimagined by no less than the great-grandson of the original distiller and EXCLUSIVE to the Tribe – The Red Mill Rum Gold Rum!

Now what do you get if you take a 6^th generation spirit wholesaler AND great grandson of the producer of Sydney’s favourite rum brand of the 1930’s through to 1970’s – then team him up with a legend in high-end spirit sales in Australia, the former Australian brand ambassador for Moet-Hennessy? Well, you get Red Mill Rum is what you get!

This first batch of Red Mill Gold Rum is a marriage of 5 types of cask – White Bordeaux, Aussie Pinot Noir, Oloroso and Mistelle Sherry and Cognac. Married and slowly diluted to 42%abv in an inert vat, it was then rested in an ex-bourbon cask for a month before bottling.

David Fesq and Garth Foster are the two brains behind this relative newcomer to the Aussie rum scene. And they’re not content to do it the ‘usual way’’. Their vision is of a rum with a lighter, more floral flavour profile and they have certainly achieved this in spades!

Now, whilst they have re-used the ‘Red Mill Rum’ brand (and let’s face it – who wouldn’t if their family ‘owned it’ all those years ago) – they have never set out to recreate Red Mill exactly the same as it was.  Theirs is a new, re-imagining of the family brand. Unlike the original – it’s not being contract-distilled by the local CSR sugar mill as it was ‘back in the day’. Nope – this is a hands-on brand resurrection – giving David and Garth the ability to produce rum exactly how they want to.

Their spirit is lighter and cleaner than a lot of our ‘artisanal’ rum makers due in part to their use of a column still which helps extract a more crisp spirit, less oily and more refined. They use a mix of Winemaker’s PDM (Chardonnay) and Fusion (Pinot Noir) yeasts. ~96 hours of fermentation giving a ~7.5% yield. This, combined with their exclusive use of ex-wine or grape spirit aging casks, produces a spirit with as unique a spectrum of aromas and flavours as I’ve ever tasted.

Rum Stats

Our Tasting Notes

Nose: Big grated apple notes dominate the nose at first but then subtle red wine tannin-ey notes begin to curl through. After a minute or two in the glass, soft jasmine notes make themselves known as well.

Palate: Clean and crisp on the palate as column stills do so well. An initial, surprising – but delicious- peanut-brickle burst of flavour backed up by   lovely, fruity notes – pineapple, apple and pear  – with biscuit spices and fresh pastry notes wafting confidently in the background.

Finish: Fades out with a delightful, almost ginger-nut biscuit feel. Definitely ground ginger there, but those spices fade out hand in hand with it.

This is a rum unlike any I’ve tried before. It’s definitely not your classic caramel and liquorice forward Aussie Style. It’s light on the palate, but by no means insipid. Fruity without being too sweet or funky. Bold flavours – but not overbearing.  Floral, but not over the top. The wine cask maturation definitely has a noticeable hand in this. I’ve only tried it straight up so far – but I’m betting this will have a huge contribution to make to the cocktail scene with it’s rather unique flavour profile.