80: An Epic Blind Foursquare Tasting: Which Rums Under $50(ish) Are the Best Value?
In this episode, we embark on a journey to discover which Foursquare rums that are $50(ish) or less are truly the best value. To do this, we went through a blind tasting of 10 widely available affordable rums distilled at Foursquare Distillery: Alleyne Arthur's Special Barbados Rum (43% ABV) Old Brigand Black Label (43% ABV) Real McCoy 5-Year (40% ABV) Doorly's 5-Year (40% ABV) Doorly's XO (40% ABV) Doorly's 8-Year (40% ABV) R.L. Seale's 10-Year (43% ABV) Doorly's 12-year (43% ABV) Real McCoy 12-Year (40% ABV) R.L. Seale's 12-Year (46% ABV) Note: We mention in this episode that some online sources state that Doorly's 12 is a blend of 90% ex-bourbon cask rum and 10% ex-Madeira cask rum. We reached out to Richard Seale to ask about it and he responded with, "We have never released any info on the blend of Doorly’s 12." Along the way, we rate each rum blind so we can walk away with our own personal rankings (and a Rumcast average ranking). We edited in a reveal of each rum so that you will know which rum we are talking about as we taste it. You can find the spreadsheet with our scores and the reveal of each rum here (spoiler alert!): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pJ--B3oDKMu4pXVkHF7uBEwgyXFfC_gMN1AXnXHwEMc/edit?usp=sharing These rums represent one of the most common gateways to Barbados rum, Foursquare, and even the rum category itself for so many people. It was a blast to go through them, and we came away with a bunch of surprises. P.S. If you’d like to watch a video version of this episode, it’s already available for our Patreon subscribers at patreon.com/therumcast.