Saturday, September 8, 2012

Corks and Cocktails: Key West

    
      Southern Wine and Spirits of South Florida and Transatlantic Wine and Spirits of Florida held a gala event last night at the Casa Marina Hotel here in Key West.    The evening was all about wines and spirits, with a special interest for me being rum.

    We were introduced to a new Dominican Republic rum Called Dominican Club, a really nice anejo rum with a very mature finish for a young rum.  The rum had aromas of fruit and mocha, this amber colored rum was of a very solid nature with smoothness unlike most young rums.

     Cruzan had Master Distiller Gary Nelthropp, a fourth generation master distiller for Cruzan. He talked to us about the different components of the fermentation and distillation processes and what components are good for the rum and which ones are bad.


     Southern Wine and Spirits did a great job of creating a fun event that was very helpful for those of us that buy rum, spirits, and wines for the bars here in Key West, and I was grateful to all of the producers' representatives that were there to make this event very enlightening.  Rum was the most important part for me, but the evening was filled with fine wines, food and spirits of all kinds for out tasting and to become  acquainted with.  ;o)