First Panella Rum

[Oldvine Zin]

Digging through the cellar I found a bottle of the first Pannela rum that I made back in 2016. Being new at this hobby I thought I had made something great, tasting it now I think that i was over excited to have actually have produced a rum to realize that I was greedy and went too far into the tails - wow some harsh nasty drink. Can't believe that I gave some of these bottles away thinking that they tasted good.
Thanks to this forum and the time I took reading here, I think that my product has improved to the point of having something more drinkable than that batch of pannela.

OVZ

[cede]

Great when you find an old experiment
Do you remember or have noted the recipe and process ?

[OtisT]

First barreled in 2016 you were a bit rough. With the right head for this and a whole lot of heart (no comment on your bottom), it only took two years of aging in the right environment (HD) to polish your stilling skills to near perfection. Sounds like you have aged out nicely my friend.

Otis

[Twisted Brick]

I wouldn't feel too bad, OVZ. There's a belief here that much of the flavor is found deep (rum oils) in the tails. What you did sounds like something I might do on my first rum project, when I come to that.

[Mike6090]

Thanks for sharing your experience. My first rum is in the wash so to speak. I will mind the tails!

[Oldvine Zin]

The least I can say that on that batch I wasn't greedy on the heads And yes thinking that there would be great flavors deep into the tails was a mistake.
Thanks to all of the great information here on HD, I now think that my current rum is drinkable - will have to revisit that rum in a couple of years to see/taste if I have learned anything.

OVZ

[Oldvine Zin]

Great when you find an old experiment
Do you remember or have noted the recipe and process ?

Totally - the recipe is sound just my understanding of tails cuts at that time was way off.

OVZ

[cede]

Nice

[Bushman]

But it was great meeting up and sharing experiences!

[Oldvine Zin]

Hey Bushman If I gave you a bottle of that rum feel free to dump it - I have something I hope is better waiting for you- the jury is still out

OVZ

[Bushman]

Hey Bushman If I gave you a bottle of that rum feel free to dump it - I have something I hope is better waiting for you- the jury is still out

OVZ

Not sure what I did with it but you should know that it can all go back into the next run

[Oldvine Zin]

I let a couple of my close friends try a sip before I dumped it, they both said that it was better than a lot of the rum they had tasted I think that not only have my skills improved here, but also my palette.


Thank-you Uncle Jess and everyone here that makes this forum a great place!

OVZ

[DetroitDIY]

That's interesting Oldvine. I'm a rum fan. Built a simple pot still and ran 3 batchs, 3 different recepies. Ended up dumping all of them together into an old Bourbon barrel (after noticing at the very end that the 3rd batch had aged quite nicely in a 1 gal new oak barrel.

They've now been in the barrel some 18 months. Drinkable, but not great. I've given away a bit too. Got nice feedback, but I'm sure it's junky stuff. I'm closing in on finishing my second still and hope that I can hone my skill as you have to produce something worth while.

My worst stuff was pure blackstrap (and my first run). My best stuff was pure panela (and my last run). I'm going to try my hand at a number of Purgirum rounds on blackstrap and see how good I can get it (and fill up my 15 gallon barrel).

[DetroitDIY]

Looking over my old notes on my first rum run (blackstrap) I see that I had re-pitched the wash with a turbo after I thought that the baker's yeast had stalled (may have). It's funny now seeing this and thinking about how bad that first run was. I had previously attributed it to using the blackstrap, but now I wonder if it was more the turbo that made it nasty.

I should be able to find out as I begin working on re-supplying my rum stock... it's been 2 years since I last made some.