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Newfoundland Screech

Price

$20.24/750ML

Bought at

Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation (Halifax)

We bought this bottle some time ago after having sampled the Rum in one of the minute bottles one can find at the counter of most liquor stores; the sampling had obviously be satisfactory enough that we wished to taste it further. Screech, as you may know, is the official drink of Newfoundland and has a legend attached to it. I was sad, though not surprised, to learn that the screech of today, is really just Jamaican Rum, or rums (perhaps the charm lies in the anonymity of it) rather than being Rum revived from empty casks through soaking as it was of old, and is hence more a curiosity and historical entity than a specific Rum. Screech smells like a typical dark Rum, rich with little refined sugars and sharp with oak, although, in this case, the smell is not unpleasant or overpowering like some other Jamaican Rums. In the mouth, it has a good consistency and a light taste of cane, belying the smell; the sweetness is perhaps being kept in check by a relatively predominent oaken bitterness which lends the draught a little spice and gives it a cleansing feeling in the mouth. So far, so good, though little surprising; the really unique characteristic of this Rum, however, comes in the aftertaste in the form of maple sugar: yes, indeed, maple sugar! The first few occasions on which I experienced the aftertaste, I put it down to delusion or having perhaps eaten something during the day that blended with the Rum to create this taste, but I have tried it times enough now to know that it is indeed real. Is the taste engineered, either through selection or additives, to make it more Canadian? (Though I should think there are precious few maple trees on The Rock.) Or is this just another of those freakish coincidences which make life worth living? What ever the answer is, this characteristic, along with the overall pleasant construction of this Rum, makes it a unique Rum, worth drinking as far as I'm concerned.

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