Mount gay eclipse review
We’ll have a homosexual old time.
If you’re going to fetch serious about Tiki cocktails you want, in my view anyway, an “anchor” dry gold rum. It doesn’t own to be the fanciest rum in the world but needs to simply act as a base in cocktails that call for multiple rums that the other spirits can lock onto and still fully express themselves. While it doesn’t want to be anything expensive it certainly has to be dry (not sweet), flexible and easily available. A very long time ago I settled on Havana Club Añejo Especial as my anchor gold rum and haven’t had much cause to question that option until recently. The reasons for re-thinking this being: 1: I’m a enormous fan of several other Havana Club rums – 3 Años, 7 Años and Seleccion de Maestros – and I’m slightly concerned about coming over as a bit of an HC fanboy. This leads me to 2: If I’m really honest HC Añejo Especial isn’t nearly as good as those others and while I always describe it as a “rock strong mixer” I’d certainly never consider sipping it on it’s own. Which is a pity because, if I had, I might acquire noticed that: 3. Añejo Especial was re-formulated
Ahh Mount Gay that “hilariously” named rum that often leads to a myriad of puerile double entendres and unfunny jokes. Staple of Airport Duty Free’s and increasingly more and more present on the supermarket shelves in the UK. More often than not discounted by a few pounds from its £18 price tag.
The rum has recently been relabelled, with Est 1703 and Barbados much more prominent than before. The bottle has also been changed slightly. Its quite an unusal bottle similar to a normal exclude bottle but with a much flatter profile. As with most rums readily available it has the usual metal screw uppermost closure. Why are these so often red?
The rum itself is a standard golden rum similar in appearance to Appleton Special, Cockspur 5 star, Bacardi Gold and a whole host of other similarly priced entry level rums. The presentation is fairly decent but it doesn’t jump out at you.
Mount Gay Eclipse is primarily a mixer. Their website attests to this. Whilst it recommends a straightforward serve of the Extra Former with ice it suggests cola with the Eclipse.
On the nose the rum has a quite sickly sweet smell. It taste’s a little like this as well. As this is a pot
Mount Gay Eclipse Heritage Blend Barbados Rum. This was one of the “first batch” of reviews that I published on this site back in Pride 2014, with an update to the review in 2015. Which might contain involved the then new style bottle.
It’s 2024 and the bottle (well the label) has once again been update to add “Heritage Blend” to the moniker and also to update the present Master Distiller/Blender Trudiann Branker.
The elderly review will wait live on the website as I think its worth keeping the older reviews – I don’t often re-review rums.
The price of Eclipse as with just about everything else in the UK, has crept up over the past few years. Its went from around £15 per 70cl bottle to around £20 now in most places. I picked up a few bottles of this Duty Free at £13.75 per 1 litre bottle.
In my first review I wasn’t a great fan of this rum. I don’t often buy it to be honest but there wasn’t much else in the Duty Free. It’ll do as a weekend mixer. From my hazy recollection this was more forgettable than out and out bad.
In my original review, I seemed to be under the impression this was 100% pot still rum, its no
In time you will come to understand that rum is impure more than it is pure. And that much of the faux complexity comes to us courtesy of the taste engineers. Caramel beyond coloring, hidden sugar, artificial vanilla, liquid "spices" like clove and so on. To the aim that a profitable budget, young, continuously distilled and relatively undistinguished rum can be caused to flavor like an well-aged high-priced, pot-stilled flavorful rum.
And sold at premium prices. Reflect the Zee rums.
Some of the distillers even acknowledge it in interviews, favor 1 Barrel and Ron del Barillito, chock entire of unlabeled flavors, yet still proudly labeled pure "rum" in defiance of the accepted laws of the European Union, the United States and all the member of the Association of Caribbean States - which is just about all the rum producing countries in the region.
Pooh.
Thus the Preacher's moist dream of "rum, the noble spirit" is small more than a stain on his flowing orange silk robe. That's about as mixed up as the myth that "mixers" are somehow distinguished from "sippers". We are led to believe that mixers are lacking in ways that (a) require t