December 2, 2024 • 37 mins
Bryan Inman, also known as “The Rum Champion” joins Eric today in another He Said, He Said man cave episode. Understanding the complexity of liquor is truly an art form and something that many enjoy being educated about. Bryan was lucky enough to turn his passion for rum into a career. Today he and Eric talk about how his life has changed since chasing his passion, how you can get going educating yourself more on your favorite spirit, and the similarities this journey has brought both of them on.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is he said, a ya Vho with Eric Winter
and Rodalin Fantaz. All right, everybody, welcome to another episode.
And he said, he said, ayad Ho will be here
very soon, possibly even next week. She's coming home. Uh,
finally after all this time. So I'm going to continue
with my man Cave episodes here talking about things that
(00:21):
interest me in Today, We're gonna talk a bit about
rum Surprise Surprise, but not just my rum. Even though
I'm representing with Palm Republic here, I'm talking about somebody
else who is incredibly passionate about rum. I've learned so
much from this guy, Brian Inman, aka the Rum Champion
on Instagram and other platforms. Brian has become a friend
(00:45):
because of so much I've you know, I've learned about
his rum passions. But he works with tons of brands,
he works with a lot of people, and his soul
drive is to spread rum love to the world. So
let's go ahead and bring Brian in. I can't wait
to chat with him more about what got him to
this point. Brian, I already did an intro letting everybody
(01:07):
know who you are, but I just got to say
you know, to me, it comes a rum. You're the man,
the myth, and the legend. I mean, you eat, sleep,
breathe rum. I'm so thankful that we were able to meet,
and you know, I consider you a friend now on
this rum journey. But you have your own you know,
(01:27):
this is a passion all on its own that you've
built up and I can't wait to dive in more
on what got you to this point. But everybody, I
want to let you know. Like I said briefly, Brian
is aka the Rum Champion. He has an incredible passion
for rum. He even says, I drink rum and hang
out for a living. I mean nothing sounds better than that.
(01:49):
Look at that collection behind him, which is I know,
I've been there, I've seen the collection. This is just
a piece of what he has built out in his bar. Brian,
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Eric, thanks so much for having me. I consider you
a friend as well. We've done some cool things together
and we have a few things in the hopper yet
to go, so thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Absolutely absolutely, and listen, I want people to know listen,
my passion obviously is Palm Republic. Brian works with tons
of brands. There's no he's not just sitting here going
I got to promote Probably no, Brian has a full
job working with RUMs. But you know, I think, I'm
I don't want to speak for you, but I know
you only you know you embrace RUMs that you're passionate about.
You know, it's obviously you can't nurture every every product
(02:31):
the same, but if you really believe in something, I've
seen you get behind it with other brands and everything else.
Am I am? I correct in saying that, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
One hundred percent to Champion Rum. I picked the name.
Anybody that's curious, it's not like the championship belt that's
legitimately Game of Thrones, rip Prince Oberin. But yeah, it's
it's finding RUMs that I'm really passionate about that might
not be represented in certain ways because rum eric, as
you and I have talked about, is a very underrepresented
and underappreciated spirit. So yeah, I get to pick the
(03:02):
brands that I believe in and then I promote them,
and it's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah. Now, let me let me go back a little
bit in your past. Were you always a rum drinker?
Because I'm the first one to say to people I
was not. I had to learn about this amazing spirit.
But were you always a rum drinker?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
No, No, absolutely not. You know, growing up it was.
You know, there's nothing more manly than drinking bourbon or
single malt Scotch because James Bond drinks it, and I
want to be a man, and you know, that's what
we do, and that's what you know, societally we're supposed
to do. Obviously, there's a big push now for sipping
a gave spirits, et cetera. The reader's digest version of
(03:40):
this is during COVID. You know, my joke is, people
were making bread, some people were and I was deconstructing
tiaki cocktails. Always really enjoyed going to tiki bars. The escapism,
the cool mugs, the fanfare when you art, when you
order certain drinks, the bar reacts, and so it's an
ambience that kind of sucks you. So I always enjoyed that.
(04:01):
And then during COVID, I started deconstructing these cocktails so
for our lovely listeners that may not know, tiki is
really Caribbean inspired cocktails. And then there was a gentleman
who basically invented tiki here in Hollywood named Ernest Raymond.
Beaumont Gant aka Don Beach. But he revolutionized mixology because
he was split basing. So your base is your spirits.
(04:22):
So rather than two ounces of whatever rum, he'd do
an ounce of dark Jamaican rum and an ounce of
gold Porto Rican rum. And so me reading these recipes
and making them at home, I started asking myself, well,
what's the difference for these Why are these two specific
RUMs called for in this? And then that got me
really interested in trying more RUMs by themselves, and quickly
(04:42):
realizing that everything I knew about rum was wrong, you know,
assuming that it was spice RUMs and you know, lime
flavored RUMs, et cetera. But that wasn't the case. And
so then I went way down the rabbit hole and
the rest is kind of history from there.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
You know, I think you said a couple of things
that just made me think about my journey with rum.
And I know, for a lot of people, especially in
the States, I should say I don't want to go
to the Caribbean and Latin America, South America, you know,
Central America, they have a handle on rum for sure.
But in the States, you know, when I started drinking
it was Captain Morgan. It was Malibu. It was, And
there's nothing against any of these RUMs. These are all
(05:18):
just different products with in a category. But people often
equate rum as spiced, sweetened, flavored, you know, that whole thing.
And when I was first exposed to it, it was
a boocardios you know what I mean, in Puerto Rico,
and it was with my you know now in laws
for the first time and going, wow, I'm drinking I'm
(05:38):
sipping this on the rocks. This is not how I've
ever thought of this spirit. And I enjoyed it. I
really liked it. Really, this is a complex you know,
it's a complex spirit like any of these other ones
that are on the market. Now, what I also found
fascinating and maybe even a little bit more unique, is
there are many distilling methods with rum that can change
the flavor and the notes and the profile of of
(06:00):
the spirit. Whereas agave spirits, you know, you're kind of
locked into these same regions that do it, or the
one region that does it, but the same distilleries that
all make it, and they might have a little tweaks,
so they might add little drops of X, Y and
Z that they don't have to disclose to give it
a little hint of flavor, but they're all made the
same way, whereas with rum, you could be a pot still,
a column still, and it really changes what you're sipping on.
(06:23):
And a lot of people call it the funkiness of
a Jamaican rum or something like that. You know, the
way the pots still almost like a cognac, the way
it will go off the pro you know, the profile.
And I think it's something that people should learn to
know that. It's a lot of fun exploring RUMs on
the market. It's not just a linear.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Spirit correct, Yeah, I mean it's it's there's infinite possibilities
because there are no constraints. As you mentioned, rum is
distilled in ninety plus countries, so RUMs from Vietnam are
monumentally different from RUMs from Puerto Rico, and those are
so different than Cane's uice rum that's coming out of Sicily,
which that's now hitting the US market. And then that's
(07:02):
even before you get into blending lovely RUMs together like
what Palm Republic and all of its glory and amazingness
is doing. So there's infinite there's infinite components, not even distillation.
It's how long are you fermenting? Is it short, fermentation,
is it long? Where are you distilling? Are you up
in the mountains, are you at sea level? How are
you aging? Where are you aging? There's some distilleries in
the Caribbean that are actually aging their barrels underwater. I
(07:26):
think it's one of maybe Grand King or something like that.
So yeah, it's it's crazy. I've always kind of said
if you're an adventurous spirits appreciator, and never have I said, oh,
you need to stop drinking whiskey or agave or whatever.
But if you're somebody that appreciates a good spirit and
appreciates the true marriage of passion and science with distillation,
(07:46):
then rum is absolutely something that you should stop sleeping
on because it's the wild West and it's glory and
it's amazing. And all I could say is be careful
because you might end up like me with seven hundred
ish bottles of rum in your house. I don't recommend
it at all, but it's a rabbit hole for sure
that can take you down.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
I'm still trying to catch up to you. But what
I you know, since I started getting, you know, into
this space of rum, I really appreciated the varietals that
are out there. There's so much to explore, like you said,
from different places, different regions. That was one of the
fun things about Palm Republic. And this is not an
episode about Palm Republic, it's about Brian. But one of
the things about us I just want to say is
we really wanted to blend a premium rum to be sipped.
(08:28):
We wanted to bring out many of the amazing characteristics
of different RUMs from different regions and put them into
a bottle. It wasn't to you know, blend to cover
anything up. It was like, let's let people explore the
differences of these different uh regions, Marcus distillation processes and
put them in one bottle and have someone go, Wow,
that's not what I expected. And I think, to your
(08:50):
credit what you just said about all different RUMs, many
bourbon and whiskey drinkers are shocked right now, at least
in my experience, ones with Palm Republic, but even ones
on other RUMs. It's like, whoa, this is actually a
great alternative to branch out from my bourbon and my whiskey,
and even our silver or other silvers are a great
version of branch out from a tequila a block, you know,
(09:11):
it's they or or a vodka for that matter. It's
got a much better taste profile than a And I
love vodka on the rocks of the Lime. That was
my jam forever, Gray Goose Rocks Lion, that was all
I did, and having there is you know, the truth is,
vodka doesn't have a lot of flavor to it.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
It's just correct.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Something you become accustomed to going. All right, I'll do
a little less Cranberry, a little less Red Bull, whatever
it is, and I'll eventually get myself to just the drink,
just the spirit. Whereas if you get into like these,
agave isn't especially like even the silver RUMs that are good,
there's a flavor profile that jumps out that's unique. Yep,
And I think it's fun.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
It flips everything on its head. And so we'll stay
with Palm Republic for a second because it's it's awesome.
So I'm assuming many of your lovely listeners have tried it,
so that the cool thing about Palm Republic is one
the Jamaica component that you put into that really helps
carry and round out a very delicious sipping experience. The
other big piece that I have to commend you for
(10:10):
is being very upfront and unapologetic about unadulteration. You know,
there's a big debate going on in the rum world
of oh, should rum be adulterated?
Speaker 1 (10:19):
It?
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Should it not be adulterated? If it has sugar, it's awful.
There's a stylistic and cultural component to some of these
things where I think myself and a lot of people
end up is just be transparent. Are you putting things
in there? The fact that we don't have nutritional labels
on alcohol is crazy because you have not everything else.
But with Palm Republic, it's just that's a big differentiator
for you guys as leaning in and saying these RUMs
(10:40):
are unadulterated, meant to be enjoyed. And the key thing
that you said, Eric, that I really like, which endeared
me to you very quickly, was just let's try it neat,
because my mission is really just to get people to
sip things neat. And I'm not saying don't trink a cocktail.
Doesn't enjoy cocktails. I do all the time, But it's
really breaking the mold and the cycle and these perceptions
that people have with rum of there's either the when
(11:02):
I say, oh, I'm a Rum guy, it's the really
bad Jack Sparrow impersonation. Why is RUM gone? I'm like, yeah,
I don't know why it's gone, but I've earned that one.
Or it's I don't like Rum. What have you had?
Oh I had too much Captain in Cocain College, Or
it's pina coladas. So Rum, as always, as you've said,
too been associated with sweet and tiki drinks themselves, are
(11:24):
very very sweet inherently so being able to bring to
market a rum that flips fit on its head, and
when you get people to try Palm Republic or other
amazing RUMs, Chairman's Reserve, four Square, et cetera, you see
kind of the lights of people's eyes kind of light
up and go, wait a minute. Everything that I thought
I knew about Rum is just I need to reassess
(11:44):
everything now because it's just always been sweet and we're
breaking them all together. So I love it.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
That's one of the things that you know, even as
I've gone with this brand and meeting different people, they're
always the first assumption is, oh, I had a bad hangover,
and I go, you know what, I had a bad
hangover with tequila. Twenty five years ago, Tequila was garbage.
You'd have a margarita or two or three and you're like, WHOA,
I feel awful because it was blended, it was full,
(12:19):
it was crushed eye, it was full of syrup and sugar.
It wasn't the tequila. Well there to some extent, there
wasn't as good a tequila back then. There's a lot
better tequilas now, So to some extent it could have
been you know, a little bit of percent of the
tequila quality. But also it was the amount of sugar
in the way it was being consumed. But there's no
such thing as a skinny margarita back then. It was
(12:40):
just a slushy. It's like putting a slurpee in with alcohol.
You're gonna feel the effects and have a hangover because
the sugar, the amount of sugar having in it. Any
cocktail is going to affect you if it has too
much sugar, the sugar is what's giving you the hangover,
not the spirit necessarily. And I think with RUMs people
often go, well, isn't that made from cane sugar? I mean,
(13:01):
it's made from sugar, sugar cane, right, That's definitely a
full sugar beverage. And you know, and correct me if
I'm wrong, But agave is also a sweetener when you
take it. You have to take the agave like the
heart of the plant, and then they chop it up
and they boil. They get it all boiled and cooked,
and they turn it into a starch, which again is
(13:22):
a sugar. But the difference is when you distill it
and you bring the alcohol in and you take the
sugars out in the distilling process. And it's the same
with rum. Yes, it's coming from sugar cane, but when
you're breaking it down, you're fermenting it and you're distilling it,
a lot of that sugar is evaporating, going away and
leaving you with this alcohol product. Yep. And when in
(13:43):
the research I've done, funny enough, silver RUMs have about
the same or less even chloric value than silver tequilas.
It's about the same, it's not any greater. And when
you get into the age spirits, an age tequila, an
aged rum, or a bourbon, they're gonna have a little
higher sugar profile because of the barrel and the aging
(14:03):
and the sherry cask and all that. So you're bringing
it in the process for all spirits. It's not just
one made from caine. If you go to bourbons and whiskeys,
it's what wheat, it's graines corn also corn. Also what's
corn syrup an alternative to sugar exactly, So bourbon all
that's coming from corn. So it still all bases itself
(14:23):
out of like a sugary product, all of them. It's
just when you go through the process, that goes away
and you're left with an alcohol. So I want people
to understand that because so many times people go rum sugar.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Yep, exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
It's not equal. It's not one to one. That's not
how it works.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Yeah, and I was doing an event at Kanya Rumbar,
which for everybody listening, if you are around on the
tenth of December, come hang out with Eric and I
at Kanya Rumbar in downtown La did in a tasting
event with Eldorado. I'm a part time brand ambassador for them.
They're out of Guyana. We could talk all about their
amazing wooden stills from the seventeen thirties in a different
(14:59):
point in time, but Eldorado is a classic example of
for the longest time they had and brought to market
RUMs with very sweet syrupy profiles where you know carmel.
I'm assuming there was some sort of sugar or something,
but very surpy when you taste it. So we tried
the first one from an old blend of bottle that
I found collecting dust on a shelf. It's like ten
(15:20):
years sitting there. Still good. Alcohol doesn't go bad. The
first one everybody tasted, everyone was like, yeah, this is
pretty surpy, this is pretty pretty smooth, pretty light. Then
we went to a different year, an eight year aged
expression of theirs with no sugar added, and then everybody
could tell the night and day difference. Then we went
to an older blend of a fifteen year that they
did that was finished in dry madeira wine casks, madeira
(15:41):
which is very sweet. Also with the old process of
how Eldorado used to do things. So we went very sweet,
very smooth, no alcoholic burn to the alcoholic burn because
of the lack of sugar. And then we went back
and then we finished at fifty eight percent and we
basically yo yod. But the whole point is, I think
as well for the market for the longest time, you know,
(16:03):
Ronza kop Out of Guatemala really reintroduced this whole premiumization
of rum. And I'm doing the air quots. I'm not
saying it's a bad rum. I mean a lot of
purists out there don't like it because of the sugar content,
et cetera. But Zakappa was the.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
First add a little sweetened to that. Right, it's a
little sweeter than most. Yeah. Yeah, they don't have to
disclose though, correct me ever wrong, it's like two percent.
Anything under two percent in any spirit. By the way,
because there are a lot of your favorite tequila's out there,
I won't name names, but a lot of them that
have hints of vanilla, hints of that. If you look
at the back, it'll say this. No, they're adding that
(16:37):
to the drink. They just don't have to disclose it
after too less. It's under it's under two percent.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
One hundred percent. And that really speaks to just not
only just the rum category, but since we're talking rum,
I don't know, ten, ten twenty years ago, Zakappa was
seen as the bee's knees. Everybody was drinking sweeter RUMs.
They were drinking lighter RUMs. And now for the people
that are have gone down the rabbit hole, they typically
(17:01):
like unadulterated. They like higher proof. Where I've ended up
for myself is it's like burger king, have it your way, No,
you want to basically just you want to enjoy it.
And Richard Ceo from the four quart of Siler and
Barbados has always said, and I really like this, Drink
what you like, but know what you're drinking. And so
for the undiscerning palettes, where I tell anybody to start
(17:23):
with rum, because the whiskey comparison I'll make is when
you're trying Scotch, you start with monkey shoulder. You don't
start with lagavulin. And the same thing with rum. So
if you've only ever had Captain Morgan and you're expecting
something sweet, diplomatico is a great place to start because
those were a little sweeter. And then you can jump
over to something like if we're going to focus on
(17:45):
the quote unquote Latin style aka column still lighter styles,
dounku a Puerto Rico is amazing. I love them Florida
Kanye as well, because Florida Kanye doun Q they're not
adding any sugar or anything, so those are drier. So
that's the entry point. Then you can go to Palm
Republic Dark anybody, or the Palm Republic Silver and Barbados,
(18:06):
Saint Lucia. There's a number of different places. So where
I'm focused is really helping people on in their journey
because you do need those stepping stones. You can't just
say cool, yeah, you've only ever had Captain Morgan. Well,
here's this sixty two percent rum from Barbados that you
should drink. Because all the events I do and I
try to have people drink cask strength rum or barrel
proof rum. People always go they wins, and they go,
(18:26):
oh god, am I supposed to like this? Well eventually,
but if you never end up getting there, that's fine.
Like rum is a journey, alcohol is a journey, but
so the spirits. I guess in my adhd rant consumers
and their profiles have certainly changed, and people are demanding
at least transparency, and you have discerning consumers that I
(18:49):
like to think, I know you and myself and so
many others are really drinking to appreciate again, the passion
and the science that are married together by the people
who love what they do. It's not about taking shots.
It's not about you know, going super hard every day.
We couldn't you know in this alcohol business. And so
I think that people becoming more aware of appreciating what
(19:12):
they're tasting and demanding transparency in those discerning palettes is
helping shift the market. Hasn't stopped a lot of brands
from continuing to add, And I think that's because people
still like sweet.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Because it's more palatable to the average person, right, And
I think that's what And even me to your point,
like when I started just on any even on bourbons
and whiskeys, I started, you know, a regular proof, right,
it was made proof, that's all it was. And as
you go down the journey, you start going you know,
I don't like when I order a cocktail and I
don't really actually taste the alcohol, like did they put
(19:46):
anything in here? Or you know, I have an old
fashion Wow, this is sweeter than it is, you know
anything else. I don't. I don't feel like I'm getting
the bang for the buck. When do you think this
movement started? Because I know it's a bit of a
movement in the bourbon and whiskey space. I think in
tequila's well, and obviously in the rum space is overproofing, right,
which something we did with our age as well. But
when do you think that starter has that but just
(20:07):
been going on for a long time that people are overproofing.
It's just to the average consumer, it takes time to
get to that spot.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yeah, I mean on a global scale, I think that
movement has been fairly recent within the last probably twenty eighteen,
twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, somewhere in that window. And that's
really kind of I know I've mentioned four Square a
few times, but really at the forefront, they have these
exceptional cask series line that they do, and the first
(20:34):
that they released were eighty six proof, and then they
quickly started going to one, twenty one, twenty two, one
twenty six, and so that helped shift the market. Now,
if we zoom in just on the island of Jamaica,
Jamaicans drink white rum, and their white rum is sixty
three percent. So it's stuff like Ray and Nephew rum,
(20:54):
fire money, muscle, overproof, et cetera. So in certain pockets
my Trinny friends down in Trinidad, they drink something called punchon,
which no disrespect to punching, but it's an absolute abomination
because it's it's as neutral of a white rum as
you can get, so it's almost tastes like vodka, but
imagine a one to fifty one vodka. Now they're not
drinking that meat. I mean, some of them are, because
(21:15):
there's they're a pretty big party culture in trinid they
call them FETs and they have carnival and all that
kind of stuff. But those are minor pockets, but the
vast majority if you go down to Central South America,
you know, in Nicaragua they drink it thirty five percent,
in Mexico it's thirty five percent. So it really just
depends on where people are in the world. But I
would say that there's always been higher proof options, but
(21:38):
they were always pretty minuscule. And then over the past
handful of years, you've seen independent bottlers like Velluer or
homes Key really take RUMs from around the world and say,
this is a rum from Guyana bottle at fifty five
percent or sixty something percent, and where of the nearly
(21:59):
fifteen hundred that I've had, I can still appreciate things
down at eighty. Sometimes they have a lot of flavor,
like the Palm Republic silver, But where I typically like
things is if it's forty three, forty five percent somewhere
in that range. That's something I really enjoy sipping. I
used to to be on the spectrum of the glasses
(22:21):
down in the nose and the're going, well, you know,
if it's not cask strength, I don't want it. It's
not worth my time.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Explain to our listeners the proof and the percent.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm not sure who created
this whole system because weird.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
It's a weird troof percent.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
So, but the proof is when I say one hundred
and you know, a hunter proof that means fifty percent alcohol.
So I'm not sure why we have both. I actually
have to look up the history of that. I should
have been more prepared.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
But it's a weird system. I had to learn it
as I got into this space. I was like, wait, yeah,
what eighty proof? What what does that mean? Percent wise?
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Yeah, so it's basically whatever the proof is, you just
divide that by two and that's your ABV or your
alcohol by volume. I really wish it would just be
one standard way. So who knows, maybe maybe we can
all get we can start a movement and just have
it be one or the other.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
You know, what's the strongest proof you've ever had and
did have you ever? Have you ever said, WHOA, that's
too much?
Speaker 2 (23:25):
So I went to Uh, there's a really cool rum
group in Singapore called the Rum Cartel, very intimate rum Club.
They're all fortune five CEOs and it's Singapore, so you know.
They pulled out a bottle from the from an independent
bottle called Rum Deluxe. They are a Danish independent bottler
for our listeners. Independent bottlers are third parties that are
(23:48):
getting their hands on barrels from barrel brokers. That's how
it's worked in the rum world for three hundred plus years,
so think of them as a third party. The barrel
brokers are in Amsterdam, they're in Liverpool, and so third
part already. Independent bottlers go to these giant warehouses and
say I want this barrel or I'm going to take this,
and then they brand it and bottle it under their
(24:08):
own label. Just like Palm Republic is a blender, they're
not a distiller, so they're blending components from I'd imagine
Eana Shear and others to be able to blend things
together and then put their own label on it. So
the rum world is a bit unique like that. I'm
assuming in the whiskey world that there's independent bottlers as well,
but Rum Deluxe it was. It was a eighty five
(24:31):
point two percent basically still prove rum from the Hampton
Estate for any of our listeners. Hampton Estate. If you've
ever heard Jamaican funk, Hampton invented Jamaican funk. It's called
high ester rum and the Hampton they have eight different
marks that they can create. A mark is a recipe,
and so I had their dok mark, which is the
(24:55):
highest ester count or the most funk that you can
pack into a rum legally before it turns into perfume.
So it was called the White Tiger, and it was
eighty five point two percent, and I was smelling colors
a little bit. I had to take the tiniest little
of SIPs. And with Jamaican funk, it is designed in
(25:16):
a way and when you first hear about it, it
sounds extremely disgusting and off putting. But there's things like
there's gasoline in there. There is over ripe fruits that
turn rotten in your mouth. So the best I can
explain it is for our lovely Marvel fans out there
with Doctor Strange watching him compose and then decompose the apple.
That's kind of what was going on in my mouth.
(25:38):
So that was the most intense one. And then that's
a very specialty thing. In Saint Vincent and the Grenadines,
they actually have something. The brand is called Sunset, and
I love the name. It's very strong rum and it's
still proof. So what I mean by stillproof is whatever
it comes off the still at whatever proof, whatever percentage,
that's what they bottle it at. So this was eighty
(25:59):
four point five percent.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
So you're at like a one sixty something proof.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yeah, and it was I don't know why anybody drinks this,
and everyone's like, take a shot.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
I'm like, no, take a shot, burn your throat.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
I'm like, if I like long ago, you know, I'm
as thirty six now, I don't have the idiocy of
not the idiocy. I don't have the carelessness of youth
to be like whatever I am. I'm going to do
the much easmo thing. I'm going to prove myself I
can drink whatever I want. I did that for a
long time, as I'm sure many of us did. And
that's why I'm very much I'm going to appreciate. I'm
going to pace myself on drinking this because the next day,
(26:33):
when you prove yourself, it's not as cool. And as
the years go on, the luster of oh I said
what yesterday? I did what? Oh man, I had how
many shots? Oh? That's hilarious. As you get older, you're like,
I'm good. I want to be able to do things
the next day and enjoy being out with people and
remembering what's going on. So I cannot stress enough where
I'm hoping and hopeful to see a movement because a
(26:55):
lot of people are moving towards NA components and I
am all for non alcoholic cocktails. A number of bartender
friends that have stopped drinking, I'm all for it. I
think that there is a cultural thing in the US
wherehere it's still let's drink to get drunk, and that
this is your life. You do whatever you want. But
(27:17):
I think that perspective has turned off a lot of
people to drinking, whether you've done it yourself or you've
seen people do all the different things that they do.
And I hope I'm not getting preachy here, but I
can't emphasize enough that drinking rum and hanging out for
me is really appreciating everything so Eric, you've been over
most of my bottles, there's maybe like less than ten
percent empty because I want to taste and enjoy and
(27:40):
so cannot stress enough to our listeners. If you are
going down this rabbit hole, just takes some time to
really appreciate, and then when you learn the stories of
the people that are doing it, it just gets even better.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
It's similar to and I think people who are looking
to appreciate spirits, it's not much different than sipping on
a wine. Right when people want to sip on a wine,
very few people. I'm gonna get hammered tonight on wine, Like,
that's not the way you. Nobody approaches wine that way.
Everybody says I'm gonna have a glass of wine. Everybody
wants to be smelling, Oh, let me smell. There's this,
there's apricout the bubble. You take a sipping wine tasting
(28:12):
is fun. Even when you're at home. You might have
a glass maybe two of wine, but you're it's a
social experience. It's an appreciation of what you're sipping. People
are very snobby about their wine. I think in that regard,
you can be the same way about a spirit. Whatever
you're drinking doesn't have to be wrong. But whatever you're drinking,
you can enjoy the complexities of the spirit. If it's neat,
(28:33):
if it's on the rocks, by the way, even if
it's in a cocktail, like a lot of them we
promote on our website, which is just like two ingredients,
three ingredients. You can still appreciate a lot of the spirit.
If you get into a very sweetened there's nothing wrong
with it. If you want to go full tiki full
whatever they can and a lot of different mixes, you
can do that too and have a great time with
is the cocktail. But it's about appreciating the drink and
(28:57):
the spirit and not just getting hammered for the sake
of drinking. And that's a big difference. I think that shift.
You're right, there is a big movement for an an
alcoholic beverages, mocktails, all that, and I'm all for it too,
because I'm not a person that's ever drink. I mean,
when I was younger, too much volume. Now I'm much
more about let me have a drink. Maybe it's night,
maybe it's a couple times a week, or with my friends,
(29:17):
let me go out, let me have a cocktail, let's talk.
I'll hang out and let me enjoy this spirit. That's
a message I think that a lot of people should
try to embrace, to really get to try different cocktails, drinks,
whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Yeah, and you touched on something too, so for for
a lovely listeners, questions that I get are what am
I supposed to be smelling? What am I supposed to
be tasting? So I'm going to do a shameless plug.
I just dropped a video on YouTube today about how
to experience your spirits from what kind of glass you
could use, how you should knows or how what my
process is because mine isn't the only way, and I've
drawn an inspiration from multiple people. So there's that. So
(29:51):
if you ever find yourself going, well, how am I
supposed to smell? How am I supposed to taste?
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Quick?
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Quick spoiler alert, It's going to take a little while
to develop your palette. So alcohol is always going to burn,
whether it's at eighty, whether it's at one twenty four,
it's it's always gonna have a little bit of a burn.
And the other thing, Eric, that you said, I really
like and cannot emphasize enough to our lovely, lovely listeners.
Is that spirit forward cocktails?
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Eric?
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Who was what you were talking about? Where you want
to taste the spirit are massively underrated. Again, I love
a tiki drink, and Navy Grog is probably my favorite one.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
I was gonna ask you what your favorite TI is.
That's I've never even had that one, so I'm going
to try it.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
It's uh, there's three ounces of booze. There's honey mix,
which is basically just diluted honey with water, and yeah,
three different RUMs from three different places. White grapefruit juice.
So if anybody's on medications, you're not supposed to have
anything with grapefruit, so probably not for you. The other
classic one is in my tie, So those have, you know,
some sugary components and it's a lot of alcohol masked
(30:54):
by the fruit juices and the syrup. So but for
me now where I'm at, if I'm not just enjoying
a nice little dram as they call it in the US,
I like to call them sippy poos because I'm a
child and I like fun things. So if I'm having
a sippy poo with some friends or at home or whatever,
I'm doing that. And if I'm not doing that. It's
things like Negroni's or paper planes or excuse me, the
(31:17):
puddle jumper with palm republic rum. Old fashions are always
classic as well. So I actually just ordered a bar
book from the eighteen sixties, not the original, obviously a replica,
but I'm going back to see how they used to
make cocktails back in the day, because it was very
very simplistic, well as bitters. In some cases they were
putting if it was a fancy drink, not the old
(31:38):
fashioned way, which is a great story on its own.
There was a little bit of cuistyle, which they spelled
it differently back then bitters, and they used gum syrup,
not actual simple syrup. So that's how it used to be.
And then obviously with the progression of time and different
the cures and flavorings and all that kind of stuff,
things have really come to it. But in order to
really taste it, I always advise whatever spirit you drink
(32:02):
it neat, you can swirl it around in your mouth
so that mitigates the burn. It'll still burn in your mouth,
but it won't kill you in your throat, your chest
to your stomach, and then have it in a spirit
forward cocktail to see how it plays with just regular
simple syrup, or if you use a couple of different
kinds of bitters, so you know, Angastora is always a classic.
Fee Brothers for anybody that wants to make mocktails. Those
(32:23):
are non alcoholic bitters. Their black walnut butters are fantastic,
but you want to just see how those play together.
And if there's any aspiring mixologists out there. The Flavor
Bible is a phenomenal book. It's more so for cooking,
but you can go to whatever ingredients cinnamon and it'll
list out just in a list of what works with
(32:44):
cinnamon and things that you may never expect or even
like coffee. For example, lemon and lime juice actually work
with coffee. It's something I never would have thought of
without just going to this. But again, when you're making
things at home too. When I started in this whole
tiki thing, I was like, I'm going to make ten
cocktail or ten ingredient cocktails, because that's what it is,
and that's what's cool to be a bartender at home.
(33:06):
And now that's all fine and dan, if you've done
it for yourself. I invited a bunch of people over
for the first ever official Rum party that I had.
I had a nineteen thirty four zombie on the menu,
which has fourteen ingredients thirteen fourteen ingredients, and I didn't
batch any of the ingredients together. So when I had
six people order at once, I was like, Okay, it
took me like forty minutes to make all six of
them because I didn't know what I was doing. So
(33:28):
now you know, five ingredients are less, even four is better,
and just the simpler is the better, right, And when
you get the basics down, then you can start layering
in acid adjusted pineapple juice and you know, homemade gum
syrup and blah blah blah and all that.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Brian, this has all been fascinating. We could probably go
part two of this of this episode, but before and
thank you so much for all of this knowledge. Before
we I let you go, I wanted you to talk
about your Rum Curious Club where people are find you,
people that want to learn more about Rum. They want
to be in, you know, inspired by your stories and
just gain more knowledge. Share a little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
God, I really hate talking about myself, Okay, So my
main page where you can find me, my main channel,
is on Instagram at the Rum Champion. I've got a
YouTube page where I'm trying to grow the followership there.
Just dropped a video about how to take spirits. I've
got a treasure trove of information over there. I founded
the Rum Curious Club, so that is the name of
(34:30):
my rum club. I started it in January of twenty
twenty three with twelve people who came to my apartment,
twelve strangers. It was really weird to try and get
people to come to my house, but like, hey, do
you guys want to drink rum? Like, here's weird. And
so now we've actually expanded. We're hosted as Rum specific
Curious Club events where we highlight one brand at six
bars throughout California. I host as the Rum Champion a
(34:53):
number of in person events. You can find all of
those events on the rumcuriousclub dot com. And now also
over the second largest rum club relative to Facebook groups.
We have nineteen hundred members and we're only behind the
Florida Rum Society, who Eric knows very well as well.
So the last piece actually is Eric is going to
(35:14):
be on my podcast to the Rum this coming Monday.
So you got Instagram, you got YouTube, I do some
things on TikTok. I still don't understand that platform at
all because I'm too old, I think you know, and
at thirty six, I'm like, god, well, this is payback
for me giving my parents. What do you mean you
don't know how to use aim? What do you mean
you how text messages work? Give me that? Let me
(35:34):
show you. So, Yeah to the Rum. You can find
all these links on my Instagram page to all the
places the website for the events. You can join the
Facebook group there. You can listen to any and all
podcast episodes that I've done, and it'll take you right
to YouTube as well if you want to see so
my link tree is in my bio on Instagram at
(35:54):
the Rum Champion, and I.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Encourage you all to do it, especially if you are
curious about Rum as I once was. Please dive in,
get your knowledge, explore, learn, It's a lot of fun. Brian,
thank you for being on the podcast. Can't wait to
be on yours next week. Appreciate your time and uh
I'll see you soon.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Awesome. Thanks for having me, and I'm looking forward to
the tenth as well. So anybody in La come see
us on the tenth in downtown on your rum bar.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Appreciate rum bar la all right, man, take care. Thanks bye,
that was a lot of fun. I hope you all
enjoyed having Brian on. You know, like I said, this
guy is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to rum.
I'm so excited that he has embraced palm and as
one of his many you know, other RUMs that he supports.
But he is truly a believer, like I said, made
(36:41):
us a special drink, The puddle Jumper. Just somebody that
I think anybody interested in rum should check out. So
thank you for listening. If you have something you want
to talk about when Rosland's back as well, send it
to our dms that he said aado or email us
at Ericinross at aheartradio dot com. And until next time, bye,
Thanks for listening. Don't forget to write us a review
(37:02):
and tell us what you think.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
If you want to follow us on Instagram, check us
out at he said Ajavi or senos An email.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Eric and Ross at iHeartRadio dot com. He said. Ajaviho
is part of iHeartRadio's my Puntuda podcast network. See you
next time. Bye,
This is he said, a ya Vho with Eric Winter
and Rodalin Fantaz. All right, everybody, welcome to another episode.
And he said, he said, ayad Ho will be here
very soon, possibly even next week. She's coming home. Uh,
finally after all this time. So I'm going to continue
with my man Cave episodes here talking about things that
(00:21):
interest me in Today, We're gonna talk a bit about
rum Surprise Surprise, but not just my rum. Even though
I'm representing with Palm Republic here, I'm talking about somebody
else who is incredibly passionate about rum. I've learned so
much from this guy, Brian Inman, aka the Rum Champion
on Instagram and other platforms. Brian has become a friend
(00:45):
because of so much I've you know, I've learned about
his rum passions. But he works with tons of brands,
he works with a lot of people, and his soul
drive is to spread rum love to the world. So
let's go ahead and bring Brian in. I can't wait
to chat with him more about what got him to
this point. Brian, I already did an intro letting everybody
(01:07):
know who you are, but I just got to say
you know, to me, it comes a rum. You're the man,
the myth, and the legend. I mean, you eat, sleep,
breathe rum. I'm so thankful that we were able to meet,
and you know, I consider you a friend now on
this rum journey. But you have your own you know,
(01:27):
this is a passion all on its own that you've
built up and I can't wait to dive in more
on what got you to this point. But everybody, I
want to let you know. Like I said briefly, Brian
is aka the Rum Champion. He has an incredible passion
for rum. He even says, I drink rum and hang
out for a living. I mean nothing sounds better than that.
(01:49):
Look at that collection behind him, which is I know,
I've been there, I've seen the collection. This is just
a piece of what he has built out in his bar. Brian,
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Eric, thanks so much for having me. I consider you
a friend as well. We've done some cool things together
and we have a few things in the hopper yet
to go, so thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Absolutely absolutely, and listen, I want people to know listen,
my passion obviously is Palm Republic. Brian works with tons
of brands. There's no he's not just sitting here going
I got to promote Probably no, Brian has a full
job working with RUMs. But you know, I think, I'm
I don't want to speak for you, but I know
you only you know you embrace RUMs that you're passionate about.
You know, it's obviously you can't nurture every every product
(02:31):
the same, but if you really believe in something, I've
seen you get behind it with other brands and everything else.
Am I am? I correct in saying that, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
One hundred percent to Champion Rum. I picked the name.
Anybody that's curious, it's not like the championship belt that's
legitimately Game of Thrones, rip Prince Oberin. But yeah, it's
it's finding RUMs that I'm really passionate about that might
not be represented in certain ways because rum eric, as
you and I have talked about, is a very underrepresented
and underappreciated spirit. So yeah, I get to pick the
(03:02):
brands that I believe in and then I promote them,
and it's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah. Now, let me let me go back a little
bit in your past. Were you always a rum drinker?
Because I'm the first one to say to people I
was not. I had to learn about this amazing spirit.
But were you always a rum drinker?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
No, No, absolutely not. You know, growing up it was.
You know, there's nothing more manly than drinking bourbon or
single malt Scotch because James Bond drinks it, and I
want to be a man, and you know, that's what
we do, and that's what you know, societally we're supposed
to do. Obviously, there's a big push now for sipping
a gave spirits, et cetera. The reader's digest version of
(03:40):
this is during COVID. You know, my joke is, people
were making bread, some people were and I was deconstructing
tiaki cocktails. Always really enjoyed going to tiki bars. The escapism,
the cool mugs, the fanfare when you art, when you
order certain drinks, the bar reacts, and so it's an
ambience that kind of sucks you. So I always enjoyed that.
(04:01):
And then during COVID, I started deconstructing these cocktails so
for our lovely listeners that may not know, tiki is
really Caribbean inspired cocktails. And then there was a gentleman
who basically invented tiki here in Hollywood named Ernest Raymond.
Beaumont Gant aka Don Beach. But he revolutionized mixology because
he was split basing. So your base is your spirits.
(04:22):
So rather than two ounces of whatever rum, he'd do
an ounce of dark Jamaican rum and an ounce of
gold Porto Rican rum. And so me reading these recipes
and making them at home, I started asking myself, well,
what's the difference for these Why are these two specific
RUMs called for in this? And then that got me
really interested in trying more RUMs by themselves, and quickly
(04:42):
realizing that everything I knew about rum was wrong, you know,
assuming that it was spice RUMs and you know, lime
flavored RUMs, et cetera. But that wasn't the case. And
so then I went way down the rabbit hole and
the rest is kind of history from there.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
You know, I think you said a couple of things
that just made me think about my journey with rum.
And I know, for a lot of people, especially in
the States, I should say I don't want to go
to the Caribbean and Latin America, South America, you know,
Central America, they have a handle on rum for sure.
But in the States, you know, when I started drinking
it was Captain Morgan. It was Malibu. It was, And
there's nothing against any of these RUMs. These are all
(05:18):
just different products with in a category. But people often
equate rum as spiced, sweetened, flavored, you know, that whole thing.
And when I was first exposed to it, it was
a boocardios you know what I mean, in Puerto Rico,
and it was with my you know now in laws
for the first time and going, wow, I'm drinking I'm
(05:38):
sipping this on the rocks. This is not how I've
ever thought of this spirit. And I enjoyed it. I
really liked it. Really, this is a complex you know,
it's a complex spirit like any of these other ones
that are on the market. Now, what I also found
fascinating and maybe even a little bit more unique, is
there are many distilling methods with rum that can change
the flavor and the notes and the profile of of
(06:00):
the spirit. Whereas agave spirits, you know, you're kind of
locked into these same regions that do it, or the
one region that does it, but the same distilleries that
all make it, and they might have a little tweaks,
so they might add little drops of X, Y and
Z that they don't have to disclose to give it
a little hint of flavor, but they're all made the
same way, whereas with rum, you could be a pot still,
a column still, and it really changes what you're sipping on.
(06:23):
And a lot of people call it the funkiness of
a Jamaican rum or something like that. You know, the
way the pots still almost like a cognac, the way
it will go off the pro you know, the profile.
And I think it's something that people should learn to
know that. It's a lot of fun exploring RUMs on
the market. It's not just a linear.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Spirit correct, Yeah, I mean it's it's there's infinite possibilities
because there are no constraints. As you mentioned, rum is
distilled in ninety plus countries, so RUMs from Vietnam are
monumentally different from RUMs from Puerto Rico, and those are
so different than Cane's uice rum that's coming out of Sicily,
which that's now hitting the US market. And then that's
(07:02):
even before you get into blending lovely RUMs together like
what Palm Republic and all of its glory and amazingness
is doing. So there's infinite there's infinite components, not even distillation.
It's how long are you fermenting? Is it short, fermentation,
is it long? Where are you distilling? Are you up
in the mountains, are you at sea level? How are
you aging? Where are you aging? There's some distilleries in
the Caribbean that are actually aging their barrels underwater. I
(07:26):
think it's one of maybe Grand King or something like that.
So yeah, it's it's crazy. I've always kind of said
if you're an adventurous spirits appreciator, and never have I said, oh,
you need to stop drinking whiskey or agave or whatever.
But if you're somebody that appreciates a good spirit and
appreciates the true marriage of passion and science with distillation,
(07:46):
then rum is absolutely something that you should stop sleeping
on because it's the wild West and it's glory and
it's amazing. And all I could say is be careful
because you might end up like me with seven hundred
ish bottles of rum in your house. I don't recommend
it at all, but it's a rabbit hole for sure
that can take you down.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
I'm still trying to catch up to you. But what
I you know, since I started getting, you know, into
this space of rum, I really appreciated the varietals that
are out there. There's so much to explore, like you said,
from different places, different regions. That was one of the
fun things about Palm Republic. And this is not an
episode about Palm Republic, it's about Brian. But one of
the things about us I just want to say is
we really wanted to blend a premium rum to be sipped.
(08:28):
We wanted to bring out many of the amazing characteristics
of different RUMs from different regions and put them into
a bottle. It wasn't to you know, blend to cover
anything up. It was like, let's let people explore the
differences of these different uh regions, Marcus distillation processes and
put them in one bottle and have someone go, Wow,
that's not what I expected. And I think, to your
(08:50):
credit what you just said about all different RUMs, many
bourbon and whiskey drinkers are shocked right now, at least
in my experience, ones with Palm Republic, but even ones
on other RUMs. It's like, whoa, this is actually a
great alternative to branch out from my bourbon and my whiskey,
and even our silver or other silvers are a great
version of branch out from a tequila a block, you know,
(09:11):
it's they or or a vodka for that matter. It's
got a much better taste profile than a And I
love vodka on the rocks of the Lime. That was
my jam forever, Gray Goose Rocks Lion, that was all
I did, and having there is you know, the truth is,
vodka doesn't have a lot of flavor to it.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
It's just correct.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Something you become accustomed to going. All right, I'll do
a little less Cranberry, a little less Red Bull, whatever
it is, and I'll eventually get myself to just the drink,
just the spirit. Whereas if you get into like these,
agave isn't especially like even the silver RUMs that are good,
there's a flavor profile that jumps out that's unique. Yep,
And I think it's fun.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
It flips everything on its head. And so we'll stay
with Palm Republic for a second because it's it's awesome.
So I'm assuming many of your lovely listeners have tried it,
so that the cool thing about Palm Republic is one
the Jamaica component that you put into that really helps
carry and round out a very delicious sipping experience. The
other big piece that I have to commend you for
(10:10):
is being very upfront and unapologetic about unadulteration. You know,
there's a big debate going on in the rum world
of oh, should rum be adulterated?
Speaker 1 (10:19):
It?
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Should it not be adulterated? If it has sugar, it's awful.
There's a stylistic and cultural component to some of these
things where I think myself and a lot of people
end up is just be transparent. Are you putting things
in there? The fact that we don't have nutritional labels
on alcohol is crazy because you have not everything else.
But with Palm Republic, it's just that's a big differentiator
for you guys as leaning in and saying these RUMs
(10:40):
are unadulterated, meant to be enjoyed. And the key thing
that you said, Eric, that I really like, which endeared
me to you very quickly, was just let's try it neat,
because my mission is really just to get people to
sip things neat. And I'm not saying don't trink a cocktail.
Doesn't enjoy cocktails. I do all the time, But it's
really breaking the mold and the cycle and these perceptions
that people have with rum of there's either the when
(11:02):
I say, oh, I'm a Rum guy, it's the really
bad Jack Sparrow impersonation. Why is RUM gone? I'm like, yeah,
I don't know why it's gone, but I've earned that one.
Or it's I don't like Rum. What have you had?
Oh I had too much Captain in Cocain College, Or
it's pina coladas. So Rum, as always, as you've said,
too been associated with sweet and tiki drinks themselves, are
(11:24):
very very sweet inherently so being able to bring to
market a rum that flips fit on its head, and
when you get people to try Palm Republic or other
amazing RUMs, Chairman's Reserve, four Square, et cetera, you see
kind of the lights of people's eyes kind of light
up and go, wait a minute. Everything that I thought
I knew about Rum is just I need to reassess
(11:44):
everything now because it's just always been sweet and we're
breaking them all together. So I love it.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
That's one of the things that you know, even as
I've gone with this brand and meeting different people, they're
always the first assumption is, oh, I had a bad hangover,
and I go, you know what, I had a bad
hangover with tequila. Twenty five years ago, Tequila was garbage.
You'd have a margarita or two or three and you're like, WHOA,
I feel awful because it was blended, it was full,
(12:19):
it was crushed eye, it was full of syrup and sugar.
It wasn't the tequila. Well there to some extent, there
wasn't as good a tequila back then. There's a lot
better tequilas now, So to some extent it could have
been you know, a little bit of percent of the
tequila quality. But also it was the amount of sugar
in the way it was being consumed. But there's no
such thing as a skinny margarita back then. It was
(12:40):
just a slushy. It's like putting a slurpee in with alcohol.
You're gonna feel the effects and have a hangover because
the sugar, the amount of sugar having in it. Any
cocktail is going to affect you if it has too
much sugar, the sugar is what's giving you the hangover,
not the spirit necessarily. And I think with RUMs people
often go, well, isn't that made from cane sugar? I mean,
(13:01):
it's made from sugar, sugar cane, right, That's definitely a
full sugar beverage. And you know, and correct me if
I'm wrong, But agave is also a sweetener when you
take it. You have to take the agave like the
heart of the plant, and then they chop it up
and they boil. They get it all boiled and cooked,
and they turn it into a starch, which again is
(13:22):
a sugar. But the difference is when you distill it
and you bring the alcohol in and you take the
sugars out in the distilling process. And it's the same
with rum. Yes, it's coming from sugar cane, but when
you're breaking it down, you're fermenting it and you're distilling it,
a lot of that sugar is evaporating, going away and
leaving you with this alcohol product. Yep. And when in
(13:43):
the research I've done, funny enough, silver RUMs have about
the same or less even chloric value than silver tequilas.
It's about the same, it's not any greater. And when
you get into the age spirits, an age tequila, an
aged rum, or a bourbon, they're gonna have a little
higher sugar profile because of the barrel and the aging
(14:03):
and the sherry cask and all that. So you're bringing
it in the process for all spirits. It's not just
one made from caine. If you go to bourbons and whiskeys,
it's what wheat, it's graines corn also corn. Also what's
corn syrup an alternative to sugar exactly, So bourbon all
that's coming from corn. So it still all bases itself
(14:23):
out of like a sugary product, all of them. It's
just when you go through the process, that goes away
and you're left with an alcohol. So I want people
to understand that because so many times people go rum sugar.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Yep, exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
It's not equal. It's not one to one. That's not
how it works.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Yeah, and I was doing an event at Kanya Rumbar,
which for everybody listening, if you are around on the
tenth of December, come hang out with Eric and I
at Kanya Rumbar in downtown La did in a tasting
event with Eldorado. I'm a part time brand ambassador for them.
They're out of Guyana. We could talk all about their
amazing wooden stills from the seventeen thirties in a different
(14:59):
point in time, but Eldorado is a classic example of
for the longest time they had and brought to market
RUMs with very sweet syrupy profiles where you know carmel.
I'm assuming there was some sort of sugar or something,
but very surpy when you taste it. So we tried
the first one from an old blend of bottle that
I found collecting dust on a shelf. It's like ten
(15:20):
years sitting there. Still good. Alcohol doesn't go bad. The
first one everybody tasted, everyone was like, yeah, this is
pretty surpy, this is pretty pretty smooth, pretty light. Then
we went to a different year, an eight year aged
expression of theirs with no sugar added, and then everybody
could tell the night and day difference. Then we went
to an older blend of a fifteen year that they
did that was finished in dry madeira wine casks, madeira
(15:41):
which is very sweet. Also with the old process of
how Eldorado used to do things. So we went very sweet,
very smooth, no alcoholic burn to the alcoholic burn because
of the lack of sugar. And then we went back
and then we finished at fifty eight percent and we
basically yo yod. But the whole point is, I think
as well for the market for the longest time, you know,
(16:03):
Ronza kop Out of Guatemala really reintroduced this whole premiumization
of rum. And I'm doing the air quots. I'm not
saying it's a bad rum. I mean a lot of
purists out there don't like it because of the sugar content,
et cetera. But Zakappa was the.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
First add a little sweetened to that. Right, it's a
little sweeter than most. Yeah. Yeah, they don't have to
disclose though, correct me ever wrong, it's like two percent.
Anything under two percent in any spirit. By the way,
because there are a lot of your favorite tequila's out there,
I won't name names, but a lot of them that
have hints of vanilla, hints of that. If you look
at the back, it'll say this. No, they're adding that
(16:37):
to the drink. They just don't have to disclose it
after too less. It's under it's under two percent.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
One hundred percent. And that really speaks to just not
only just the rum category, but since we're talking rum,
I don't know, ten, ten twenty years ago, Zakappa was
seen as the bee's knees. Everybody was drinking sweeter RUMs.
They were drinking lighter RUMs. And now for the people
that are have gone down the rabbit hole, they typically
(17:01):
like unadulterated. They like higher proof. Where I've ended up
for myself is it's like burger king, have it your way, No,
you want to basically just you want to enjoy it.
And Richard Ceo from the four quart of Siler and
Barbados has always said, and I really like this, Drink
what you like, but know what you're drinking. And so
for the undiscerning palettes, where I tell anybody to start
(17:23):
with rum, because the whiskey comparison I'll make is when
you're trying Scotch, you start with monkey shoulder. You don't
start with lagavulin. And the same thing with rum. So
if you've only ever had Captain Morgan and you're expecting
something sweet, diplomatico is a great place to start because
those were a little sweeter. And then you can jump
over to something like if we're going to focus on
(17:45):
the quote unquote Latin style aka column still lighter styles,
dounku a Puerto Rico is amazing. I love them Florida
Kanye as well, because Florida Kanye doun Q they're not
adding any sugar or anything, so those are drier. So
that's the entry point. Then you can go to Palm
Republic Dark anybody, or the Palm Republic Silver and Barbados,
(18:06):
Saint Lucia. There's a number of different places. So where
I'm focused is really helping people on in their journey
because you do need those stepping stones. You can't just
say cool, yeah, you've only ever had Captain Morgan. Well,
here's this sixty two percent rum from Barbados that you
should drink. Because all the events I do and I
try to have people drink cask strength rum or barrel
proof rum. People always go they wins, and they go,
(18:26):
oh god, am I supposed to like this? Well eventually,
but if you never end up getting there, that's fine.
Like rum is a journey, alcohol is a journey, but
so the spirits. I guess in my adhd rant consumers
and their profiles have certainly changed, and people are demanding
at least transparency, and you have discerning consumers that I
(18:49):
like to think, I know you and myself and so
many others are really drinking to appreciate again, the passion
and the science that are married together by the people
who love what they do. It's not about taking shots.
It's not about you know, going super hard every day.
We couldn't you know in this alcohol business. And so
I think that people becoming more aware of appreciating what
(19:12):
they're tasting and demanding transparency in those discerning palettes is
helping shift the market. Hasn't stopped a lot of brands
from continuing to add, And I think that's because people
still like sweet.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Because it's more palatable to the average person, right, And
I think that's what And even me to your point,
like when I started just on any even on bourbons
and whiskeys, I started, you know, a regular proof, right,
it was made proof, that's all it was. And as
you go down the journey, you start going you know,
I don't like when I order a cocktail and I
don't really actually taste the alcohol, like did they put
(19:46):
anything in here? Or you know, I have an old
fashion Wow, this is sweeter than it is, you know
anything else. I don't. I don't feel like I'm getting
the bang for the buck. When do you think this
movement started? Because I know it's a bit of a
movement in the bourbon and whiskey space. I think in
tequila's well, and obviously in the rum space is overproofing, right,
which something we did with our age as well. But
when do you think that starter has that but just
(20:07):
been going on for a long time that people are overproofing.
It's just to the average consumer, it takes time to
get to that spot.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yeah, I mean on a global scale, I think that
movement has been fairly recent within the last probably twenty eighteen,
twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, somewhere in that window. And that's
really kind of I know I've mentioned four Square a
few times, but really at the forefront, they have these
exceptional cask series line that they do, and the first
(20:34):
that they released were eighty six proof, and then they
quickly started going to one, twenty one, twenty two, one
twenty six, and so that helped shift the market. Now,
if we zoom in just on the island of Jamaica,
Jamaicans drink white rum, and their white rum is sixty
three percent. So it's stuff like Ray and Nephew rum,
(20:54):
fire money, muscle, overproof, et cetera. So in certain pockets
my Trinny friends down in Trinidad, they drink something called punchon,
which no disrespect to punching, but it's an absolute abomination
because it's it's as neutral of a white rum as
you can get, so it's almost tastes like vodka, but
imagine a one to fifty one vodka. Now they're not
drinking that meat. I mean, some of them are, because
(21:15):
there's they're a pretty big party culture in trinid they
call them FETs and they have carnival and all that
kind of stuff. But those are minor pockets, but the
vast majority if you go down to Central South America,
you know, in Nicaragua they drink it thirty five percent,
in Mexico it's thirty five percent. So it really just
depends on where people are in the world. But I
would say that there's always been higher proof options, but
(21:38):
they were always pretty minuscule. And then over the past
handful of years, you've seen independent bottlers like Velluer or
homes Key really take RUMs from around the world and say,
this is a rum from Guyana bottle at fifty five
percent or sixty something percent, and where of the nearly
(21:59):
fifteen hundred that I've had, I can still appreciate things
down at eighty. Sometimes they have a lot of flavor,
like the Palm Republic silver, But where I typically like
things is if it's forty three, forty five percent somewhere
in that range. That's something I really enjoy sipping. I
used to to be on the spectrum of the glasses
(22:21):
down in the nose and the're going, well, you know,
if it's not cask strength, I don't want it. It's
not worth my time.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Explain to our listeners the proof and the percent.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm not sure who created
this whole system because weird.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
It's a weird troof percent.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
So, but the proof is when I say one hundred
and you know, a hunter proof that means fifty percent alcohol.
So I'm not sure why we have both. I actually
have to look up the history of that. I should
have been more prepared.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
But it's a weird system. I had to learn it
as I got into this space. I was like, wait, yeah,
what eighty proof? What what does that mean? Percent wise?
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Yeah, so it's basically whatever the proof is, you just
divide that by two and that's your ABV or your
alcohol by volume. I really wish it would just be
one standard way. So who knows, maybe maybe we can
all get we can start a movement and just have
it be one or the other.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
You know, what's the strongest proof you've ever had and
did have you ever? Have you ever said, WHOA, that's
too much?
Speaker 2 (23:25):
So I went to Uh, there's a really cool rum
group in Singapore called the Rum Cartel, very intimate rum Club.
They're all fortune five CEOs and it's Singapore, so you know.
They pulled out a bottle from the from an independent
bottle called Rum Deluxe. They are a Danish independent bottler
for our listeners. Independent bottlers are third parties that are
(23:48):
getting their hands on barrels from barrel brokers. That's how
it's worked in the rum world for three hundred plus years,
so think of them as a third party. The barrel
brokers are in Amsterdam, they're in Liverpool, and so third
part already. Independent bottlers go to these giant warehouses and
say I want this barrel or I'm going to take this,
and then they brand it and bottle it under their
(24:08):
own label. Just like Palm Republic is a blender, they're
not a distiller, so they're blending components from I'd imagine
Eana Shear and others to be able to blend things
together and then put their own label on it. So
the rum world is a bit unique like that. I'm
assuming in the whiskey world that there's independent bottlers as well,
but Rum Deluxe it was. It was a eighty five
(24:31):
point two percent basically still prove rum from the Hampton
Estate for any of our listeners. Hampton Estate. If you've
ever heard Jamaican funk, Hampton invented Jamaican funk. It's called
high ester rum and the Hampton they have eight different
marks that they can create. A mark is a recipe,
and so I had their dok mark, which is the
(24:55):
highest ester count or the most funk that you can
pack into a rum legally before it turns into perfume.
So it was called the White Tiger, and it was
eighty five point two percent, and I was smelling colors
a little bit. I had to take the tiniest little
of SIPs. And with Jamaican funk, it is designed in
(25:16):
a way and when you first hear about it, it
sounds extremely disgusting and off putting. But there's things like
there's gasoline in there. There is over ripe fruits that
turn rotten in your mouth. So the best I can
explain it is for our lovely Marvel fans out there
with Doctor Strange watching him compose and then decompose the apple.
That's kind of what was going on in my mouth.
(25:38):
So that was the most intense one. And then that's
a very specialty thing. In Saint Vincent and the Grenadines,
they actually have something. The brand is called Sunset, and
I love the name. It's very strong rum and it's
still proof. So what I mean by stillproof is whatever
it comes off the still at whatever proof, whatever percentage,
that's what they bottle it at. So this was eighty
(25:59):
four point five percent.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
So you're at like a one sixty something proof.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yeah, and it was I don't know why anybody drinks this,
and everyone's like, take a shot.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
I'm like, no, take a shot, burn your throat.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
I'm like, if I like long ago, you know, I'm
as thirty six now, I don't have the idiocy of
not the idiocy. I don't have the carelessness of youth
to be like whatever I am. I'm going to do
the much easmo thing. I'm going to prove myself I
can drink whatever I want. I did that for a
long time, as I'm sure many of us did. And
that's why I'm very much I'm going to appreciate. I'm
going to pace myself on drinking this because the next day,
(26:33):
when you prove yourself, it's not as cool. And as
the years go on, the luster of oh I said
what yesterday? I did what? Oh man, I had how
many shots? Oh? That's hilarious. As you get older, you're like,
I'm good. I want to be able to do things
the next day and enjoy being out with people and
remembering what's going on. So I cannot stress enough where
I'm hoping and hopeful to see a movement because a
(26:55):
lot of people are moving towards NA components and I
am all for non alcoholic cocktails. A number of bartender
friends that have stopped drinking, I'm all for it. I
think that there is a cultural thing in the US
wherehere it's still let's drink to get drunk, and that
this is your life. You do whatever you want. But
(27:17):
I think that perspective has turned off a lot of
people to drinking, whether you've done it yourself or you've
seen people do all the different things that they do.
And I hope I'm not getting preachy here, but I
can't emphasize enough that drinking rum and hanging out for
me is really appreciating everything so Eric, you've been over
most of my bottles, there's maybe like less than ten
percent empty because I want to taste and enjoy and
(27:40):
so cannot stress enough to our listeners. If you are
going down this rabbit hole, just takes some time to
really appreciate, and then when you learn the stories of
the people that are doing it, it just gets even better.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
It's similar to and I think people who are looking
to appreciate spirits, it's not much different than sipping on
a wine. Right when people want to sip on a wine,
very few people. I'm gonna get hammered tonight on wine, Like,
that's not the way you. Nobody approaches wine that way.
Everybody says I'm gonna have a glass of wine. Everybody
wants to be smelling, Oh, let me smell. There's this,
there's apricout the bubble. You take a sipping wine tasting
(28:12):
is fun. Even when you're at home. You might have
a glass maybe two of wine, but you're it's a
social experience. It's an appreciation of what you're sipping. People
are very snobby about their wine. I think in that regard,
you can be the same way about a spirit. Whatever
you're drinking doesn't have to be wrong. But whatever you're drinking,
you can enjoy the complexities of the spirit. If it's neat,
(28:33):
if it's on the rocks, by the way, even if
it's in a cocktail, like a lot of them we
promote on our website, which is just like two ingredients,
three ingredients. You can still appreciate a lot of the spirit.
If you get into a very sweetened there's nothing wrong
with it. If you want to go full tiki full
whatever they can and a lot of different mixes, you
can do that too and have a great time with
is the cocktail. But it's about appreciating the drink and
(28:57):
the spirit and not just getting hammered for the sake
of drinking. And that's a big difference. I think that shift.
You're right, there is a big movement for an an
alcoholic beverages, mocktails, all that, and I'm all for it too,
because I'm not a person that's ever drink. I mean,
when I was younger, too much volume. Now I'm much
more about let me have a drink. Maybe it's night,
maybe it's a couple times a week, or with my friends,
(29:17):
let me go out, let me have a cocktail, let's talk.
I'll hang out and let me enjoy this spirit. That's
a message I think that a lot of people should
try to embrace, to really get to try different cocktails, drinks,
whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Yeah, and you touched on something too, so for for
a lovely listeners, questions that I get are what am
I supposed to be smelling? What am I supposed to
be tasting? So I'm going to do a shameless plug.
I just dropped a video on YouTube today about how
to experience your spirits from what kind of glass you
could use, how you should knows or how what my
process is because mine isn't the only way, and I've
drawn an inspiration from multiple people. So there's that. So
(29:51):
if you ever find yourself going, well, how am I
supposed to smell? How am I supposed to taste?
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Quick?
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Quick spoiler alert, It's going to take a little while
to develop your palette. So alcohol is always going to burn,
whether it's at eighty, whether it's at one twenty four,
it's it's always gonna have a little bit of a burn.
And the other thing, Eric, that you said, I really
like and cannot emphasize enough to our lovely, lovely listeners.
Is that spirit forward cocktails?
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Eric?
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Who was what you were talking about? Where you want
to taste the spirit are massively underrated. Again, I love
a tiki drink, and Navy Grog is probably my favorite one.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
I was gonna ask you what your favorite TI is.
That's I've never even had that one, so I'm going
to try it.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
It's uh, there's three ounces of booze. There's honey mix,
which is basically just diluted honey with water, and yeah,
three different RUMs from three different places. White grapefruit juice.
So if anybody's on medications, you're not supposed to have
anything with grapefruit, so probably not for you. The other
classic one is in my tie, So those have, you know,
some sugary components and it's a lot of alcohol masked
(30:54):
by the fruit juices and the syrup. So but for
me now where I'm at, if I'm not just enjoying
a nice little dram as they call it in the US,
I like to call them sippy poos because I'm a
child and I like fun things. So if I'm having
a sippy poo with some friends or at home or whatever,
I'm doing that. And if I'm not doing that. It's
things like Negroni's or paper planes or excuse me, the
(31:17):
puddle jumper with palm republic rum. Old fashions are always
classic as well. So I actually just ordered a bar
book from the eighteen sixties, not the original, obviously a replica,
but I'm going back to see how they used to
make cocktails back in the day, because it was very
very simplistic, well as bitters. In some cases they were
putting if it was a fancy drink, not the old
(31:38):
fashioned way, which is a great story on its own.
There was a little bit of cuistyle, which they spelled
it differently back then bitters, and they used gum syrup,
not actual simple syrup. So that's how it used to be.
And then obviously with the progression of time and different
the cures and flavorings and all that kind of stuff,
things have really come to it. But in order to
really taste it, I always advise whatever spirit you drink
(32:02):
it neat, you can swirl it around in your mouth
so that mitigates the burn. It'll still burn in your mouth,
but it won't kill you in your throat, your chest
to your stomach, and then have it in a spirit
forward cocktail to see how it plays with just regular
simple syrup, or if you use a couple of different
kinds of bitters, so you know, Angastora is always a classic.
Fee Brothers for anybody that wants to make mocktails. Those
(32:23):
are non alcoholic bitters. Their black walnut butters are fantastic,
but you want to just see how those play together.
And if there's any aspiring mixologists out there. The Flavor
Bible is a phenomenal book. It's more so for cooking,
but you can go to whatever ingredients cinnamon and it'll
list out just in a list of what works with
(32:44):
cinnamon and things that you may never expect or even
like coffee. For example, lemon and lime juice actually work
with coffee. It's something I never would have thought of
without just going to this. But again, when you're making
things at home too. When I started in this whole
tiki thing, I was like, I'm going to make ten
cocktail or ten ingredient cocktails, because that's what it is,
and that's what's cool to be a bartender at home.
(33:06):
And now that's all fine and dan, if you've done
it for yourself. I invited a bunch of people over
for the first ever official Rum party that I had.
I had a nineteen thirty four zombie on the menu,
which has fourteen ingredients thirteen fourteen ingredients, and I didn't
batch any of the ingredients together. So when I had
six people order at once, I was like, Okay, it
took me like forty minutes to make all six of
them because I didn't know what I was doing. So
(33:28):
now you know, five ingredients are less, even four is better,
and just the simpler is the better, right, And when
you get the basics down, then you can start layering
in acid adjusted pineapple juice and you know, homemade gum
syrup and blah blah blah and all that.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Brian, this has all been fascinating. We could probably go
part two of this of this episode, but before and
thank you so much for all of this knowledge. Before
we I let you go, I wanted you to talk
about your Rum Curious Club where people are find you,
people that want to learn more about Rum. They want
to be in, you know, inspired by your stories and
just gain more knowledge. Share a little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
God, I really hate talking about myself, Okay, So my
main page where you can find me, my main channel,
is on Instagram at the Rum Champion. I've got a
YouTube page where I'm trying to grow the followership there.
Just dropped a video about how to take spirits. I've
got a treasure trove of information over there. I founded
the Rum Curious Club, so that is the name of
(34:30):
my rum club. I started it in January of twenty
twenty three with twelve people who came to my apartment,
twelve strangers. It was really weird to try and get
people to come to my house, but like, hey, do
you guys want to drink rum? Like, here's weird. And
so now we've actually expanded. We're hosted as Rum specific
Curious Club events where we highlight one brand at six
bars throughout California. I host as the Rum Champion a
(34:53):
number of in person events. You can find all of
those events on the rumcuriousclub dot com. And now also
over the second largest rum club relative to Facebook groups.
We have nineteen hundred members and we're only behind the
Florida Rum Society, who Eric knows very well as well.
So the last piece actually is Eric is going to
(35:14):
be on my podcast to the Rum this coming Monday.
So you got Instagram, you got YouTube, I do some
things on TikTok. I still don't understand that platform at
all because I'm too old, I think you know, and
at thirty six, I'm like, god, well, this is payback
for me giving my parents. What do you mean you
don't know how to use aim? What do you mean
you how text messages work? Give me that? Let me
(35:34):
show you. So, Yeah to the Rum. You can find
all these links on my Instagram page to all the
places the website for the events. You can join the
Facebook group there. You can listen to any and all
podcast episodes that I've done, and it'll take you right
to YouTube as well if you want to see so
my link tree is in my bio on Instagram at
(35:54):
the Rum Champion, and I.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Encourage you all to do it, especially if you are
curious about Rum as I once was. Please dive in,
get your knowledge, explore, learn, It's a lot of fun. Brian,
thank you for being on the podcast. Can't wait to
be on yours next week. Appreciate your time and uh
I'll see you soon.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Awesome. Thanks for having me, and I'm looking forward to
the tenth as well. So anybody in La come see
us on the tenth in downtown on your rum bar.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Appreciate rum bar la all right, man, take care. Thanks bye,
that was a lot of fun. I hope you all
enjoyed having Brian on. You know, like I said, this
guy is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to rum.
I'm so excited that he has embraced palm and as
one of his many you know, other RUMs that he supports.
But he is truly a believer, like I said, made
(36:41):
us a special drink, The puddle Jumper. Just somebody that
I think anybody interested in rum should check out. So
thank you for listening. If you have something you want
to talk about when Rosland's back as well, send it
to our dms that he said aado or email us
at Ericinross at aheartradio dot com. And until next time, bye,
Thanks for listening. Don't forget to write us a review
(37:02):
and tell us what you think.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
If you want to follow us on Instagram, check us
out at he said Ajavi or senos An email.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Eric and Ross at iHeartRadio dot com. He said. Ajaviho
is part of iHeartRadio's my Puntuda podcast network. See you
next time. Bye,
Host
Roselyn Sanchez
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
Introducing… Aubrey O’Day Diddy’s former protege, television personality, platinum selling music artist, Danity Kane alum Aubrey O’Day joins veteran journalists Amy Robach and TJ Holmes to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation. Join them throughout the trial as they discuss, debate, and dissect every detail, every aspect of the proceedings. Aubrey will offer her opinions and expertise, as only she is qualified to do given her first-hand knowledge. From her days on Making the Band, as she emerged as the breakout star, the truth of the situation would be the opposite of the glitz and glamour. Listen throughout every minute of the trial, for this exclusive coverage. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Good Hang with Amy Poehler
Come hang with Amy Poehler. Each week on her podcast, she'll welcome celebrities and fun people to her studio. They'll share stories about their careers, mutual friends, shared enthusiasms, and most importantly, what's been making them laugh. This podcast is not about trying to make you better or giving advice. Amy just wants to have a good time.