My Fellow Inebriates,

In our liquor cabinet is a tiny bottle of APPLETON ESTATE Jamaica rum, purchased to make…a tiramisu.

This would offend me to my core had the tiramisu not been intended for my 2010 birthday. Yes, my parents do remember the date, assisted by kids so frantic for sugar that they would happily celebrate an animal’s birthday a day if they could in order to have cake.

The quarter-cup of rum my mum so generously included in last year’s celebratory dessert did, in fact, cook off, leaving a pleasant rum flavor but little of the hooch that yours truly craves so desperately. Yeah, yeah, it was nice, and everybody sang and scared the shit out of me with flaming candles, toward which my constant delirium tremens threatened to launch me, and all the rest of it.

Perhaps my malaise was evident last year, because this year my mum just gave me a shot glass of rum.

Not a standard pour, mind you, but what she deemed appropriate for a smallish bear. But, ahhh, it was delightful.

For quality my thimbleful of rum, despite being APPLETON ESTATE’S entry-level product, did not disappoint. Gloriously honey-gold and leggy (not that I could really test this part to my satisfaction, with my inadequate glassware), it wafted scents of banana, orange layered with molasses, and an ever-so-slight vanilla whiff at the finish. A touch oily in the mouth, APPLETON ESTATE V/X is a busy rum nested with flavors and imparting just enough burn.

I WOULD HAVE PREFERRED THIS BEVERAGE FROM A LARGE SNIFTER, NOT A TEENY SHOT GLASS!

In fact, I would not mix this rum with anything, NOR WOULD I COOK WITH IT! It is heavenly as is. That said, it would make a swell rum-and-coke if you must. And if you wanted to visit me in jail one day (not there yet, just anticipating it could happen one day), you could bring me rumballs. But no other balls please!

Highly RECOMMEND!