Live from New York!

Last night I had the great fortune to be able to talk about rum to 150 folks at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. I love to talk about rum, I do it often, and I find that I like it better when there's somebody there to listen.

We served up four rum drinks over the course of the 90-minute evening. Everyone began with a mini-mojito, which would have tasted even better if it were 95 degrees out, and this was followed by three drinks, each marking an interesting rum era – bombo (colonial North America), El Presidente (Prohibiton), and a shot of Ron Zacapa Centenario served neat (rum today).

The audience really knew its rum and had a lot of good, focused questions. I wanted to do the Andy Kaufman thing and take everyone out for drinks afterwards. But that would have been pretty expensive.

When I mentiioned some worthy rums to look for today, I offered up a list of some of my favorites, and said I'd post it for reference. So here it is:

Zaya (Guatemala)
Ron Zacapa Centenario (Guatemala)
Pyrat XO (and XO 23) (Anguila)
Barbancourt 5 Star (Haiti)
Rhum Clément VSOP (Martinique)
One Barrel (Belize)
Barrilito 3 Star (Puerto Rico)
Appleton VX (Jamaica)
Mt. Gay Extra Old (Barbados)
El Dorado 15 (Guyana)
Cruzan Single Barrel (Virgin Islands)
Pampero Anniversario (Venezuela)
Santa Teresa 1796 (Venezuela)
Flor de Cana Grand Reserve (Nicaragua)