u/Stenoscape

Yesterday I put together a special rum flight for my mom's birthday! She's not a rum enthusiast by any stretch of the imagination, but she'll usually try a thing or two when visiting. She does manage a restaraunt with a decent bar, so she enjoys learning about and trying new things spirit/cocktail related.

From left to right, we have:

• El Dorado High Ester Blend PM/DHE
• Bedford Park 23yr Hampden LROK
• Black Tot MBR 2021
• Beenleigh 2013 10yr
• Pere Labat Les Mangles
• Hampden HGML 2017 8yr Single Cask (Astor Select)

Her rankings:

1. Black Tot MBR 2021
2. Bedford Park 23yr Hampden LROK
3. Hampden HGML 2017 8yr Single Cask
4. Beenleigh 2013 10yr
5. El Dorado High Ester Blend PM/DHE
6. Pere Labat Les Mangles

It was a fun time! Overall, her rankings were about what I expected, but she ended up rating the HGML decently higher than I thought she would. Black Tot MBR 2021 and Bedford Park 23yr LROK were her favorites by a pretty big margin. She did NOT like the Les Mangles 😂

Package just arrived from Astor, first time ordering from them. Will be cracking into these bad boys shortly!

I live in a state with a much lesser (but improving) selection, so these were all things I can't get back home. The rum budget is now blown for a little while lol. How did I do?

This past Saturday was the 2026 Chicago Rum Festival, and my fiancee and I had the opportunity to try a whole bunch of really great bottles.

The highlight of the day was the Maison & Velier seminar to start off the afternoon, which we were lucky enough to squeeze into by getting there early enough (the online pre-registration filled up almost instantly and I was too slow.) Here, we were able to taste 4 fantastic bottles: Shakara 15 yr, Habitation Velier 2018 HGML 4 yr, Foursquare Principia, and everyone's beloved Habitation Velier Savanna HERR.

It was my first time tasting HERR, and hopefully not the last! Worth every last bit of hype and cult following it has garnered. It's truly some unique and delicious juice. That being said, the 2018 HGML was my favorite from this session, although it was very close between that and the HERR. The Shakara 15 and Foursquare Principia were also both amazing. ​

From there, we moved down to the main event space and put our palates and livers through a rigorous test of endurance, sampling many different rums over the course of a couple hours. Most of our time was spent at the Maison & Velier, Black Tot, and Worthy Park booths, but we did try our best to make it around and sample a few other things after we had our fill of those.

The main highlights of this portion of the event included being able to taste the entire Velier Magnum Series #2 lineup, the Black Tot Master Blender's Reserve 2025 (supposedly the final release in the line), and even getting the chance at the Worthy Park booth to sample some secret, unlabelled flasks of Worthy Park cane juice rum that suddenly and magically materialized from the inside pocket of a jacket. One of these was unaged, and the other was the same distillate aged for 5 years. Those were both phenomenal.

Below is a mostly-accurate list of everything we tried at the event, although admittedly some bottles probably slipped through the cracks as the day went on:

• Shakara 15 yr

• Habitation Velier HGML 4 yr

• Habitation Velier Savanna HERR

• Habitation Velier Foursquare Principia

• Isautier 16yr Sugarcane Rum

• Isautier 16yr Molasses Rum

• Magnum Series #2 Beenleigh 8yr

• Magnum Series #2 Saint James 12yr

• Magnum Series #2 Clarendon 10yr

• Magnum Series #2 Hampden 13yr

• Providence Blanc

• Providence 2020 3yr

• Habitation Velier Renegade

• Habitation Velier Mhoba

• Black Tot Finest Caribbean

• Black Tot Historic Solera

• Black Tot Master Blender's 2025

• Worthy Park Silver

• Worthy Park Overproof

• Worthy Park cane juice unlabelled flask

• Worthy Park cane juice unlabelled flask 5yr

• El Dorado 21

• El Dorado High Ester LBI/DHE

• El Dorado High Ester PM/DHE

• Planteray Mauritius 2013

• Planteray Belize 2008

• Diplomatico Reserva Exclusiva

• Diplomatico Seleccion de Familia

• Moneymusk Overprooof

• Moneymusk 5 yr

• Moneymusk 10yr

Oh, and we also had to stop in at the Bamboo Room at Three Dots and a Dash over the weekend, because apparently we didn't have our fill of rum already at that point. Here, I built my own flight, featuring a Chairman's Reserve 19 yr John Dore 1 expression (not pictured), Flag Series Ghana 2020 4 yr, Samaroli Guadeloupe 1998 Rhum Agricole, and Appleton Hearts 1993. Amazing. After that, as one final act of defiance to my palate, I had a pour of Hampden Great House 2022, which also completely lived up to the hype. I own the 24 and 25, both of which are great, but this bottle is in a league of its own as far as the Great House line goes.

Thanks to everyone who organized and participated in the event. It was a really fun time, and we'll definitely be back!