I missed the New York Rum Fest & Congress which was held on June 18th of this year. It’s the biggest rum festival in the city. Unfortunately (or fortunately for me) it was held on the same day as the Decanter Wine Encounter which was too good of a tasting to miss.
So, I was happy to see that the Brooklyn Rum Festival would be held on August 13th. The event was held at the Brooklyn Monarch, an event space in the outer reaches of Bushwick at 23 Meadow Street.
The great thing about rum is the shear diversity of the styles available. There are white rums, dark rums, flavored rums and rums of various ages. While the industry is concentrated in the Caribbean, rum is made throughout the world, and they were represented here as well.
Every producer poured several versions of their rums and even the mass producers such as Bacardi poured some limited production aged rums.
The event space is a huge warehouse with an outdoor area in the back which had a DJ spinning tunes. There was definitely a “Caribbean” vibe to the event which had about half the number of producers present than in the New York Rum Fest, but there were till more than enough rums to sample that afternoon.
Some of the rums I sample, every producer poured several different.
| Dos Maderas | Rhum Barbancourt |
| Bacardi | Trans Continental Rum Line |
| Plantation Rum | Rhum J.M. |
| Mount Gay | Rhum Clement |
| Chairman’s Reserve | Ten To One |
| Dan Q | Pasetto 8 |
| Equino | Copalli |
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