Goslings Blask Seal

[mikeac]

My brother got married to a Bermudian girl last year and ever since we have been importing this stuff to Canada, my Dad loves it with ginger beer, and we were discussing how different it is from any other rum. Any ideas how to get a product similar??

[Hawke]

Never had Goslings, but propper cuts on Pugi's Rum should be pretty close.

[mikeac]

No offense but if you've never tried it, how do you know?
Black Seal is a very different flavored rum and I assume there maybe some herbs/fruit infused during the aging...

[Mud]

I like Gosling's, too. Good stuff there.

You probably want to use Pugi's recipe as mentioned. Or Pint's. Add some wash (~20%) to your spirit run in order to get a very full flavor. Age it for a while on toasted oak. Charred oak is likely to kill the buttery taste of rum, or leave it smokey. Commercial rum is often aged in old bourbon barrels, so maybe sticks from a UJSM if that's something you have.

After it smooths out a bit and you're satisfied with the flavor add some good quality fancy molasses to taste. Go easy. It won't take much. That will give it some body, the color and the flavor you're looking for. You might need to decant later to get rid of any molasses solids that settle out.

Trying to copy a commercial product is next to impossible. But this should get you in the ball park. If you try this, please post results.

-Mud

[Hawke]

Looked for some at our bottle shop, no luck.
According to Gosling's site, they use a blend of potstilled and column distilled product.
No mention as to wether they are using fresh cane juice or molasses for feedstock though.

[mikeac]

They are a little bit of an odd company. They don't actually distill any of there own product... They buy white spirit off of other companies and only blend and age it (therefore they could be using cane juice, fancy molasses and feed stock ). It was mentioned on the forum about a year ago, but nothing was really said about attempting a clone, or even getting close. IMHO it almost seams more like a rum liqueur then a true rum, but I really have not idea...

I am currently make a rum I'm pretty happy with (the Black Seal is more a of fun attempt for my father's sake.) I use a recipe similar to Pugi's. (My recipe is molasses, sugar, canned pineapple, and 1/4 cup bakers yeast ferments and settles in about a week). Which have then been aged in mini (5L) oak barrels.

I have tried adding molasses to a batch but they were Black Strap (not fancy...) and I'm pretty sure I was less then subtle, I'll have to try again...

I'm still convinced there are some herbs added at some point... I'm pretty sure there are cloves in there and quite possibly ginger too... I am have added these herbs to small bottles of rum and will try adding them to a larger batch...


P.S sorry about my first post it was rather vague...

[Hawke]

So far, the best tasting rum for me is Pyrat. Hope I can get close when I finally get to it.
Doesn't matter the type of spirit, If I can't drink it neat, ain't worth drinkin'.

[violentblue]

So far, the best tasting rum for me is Pyrat. Hope I can get close when I finally get to it.
Doesn't matter the type of spirit, If I can't drink it neat, ain't worth drinkin'.

seen it int he stores, never bothered to try it, considering the price they're asking for it.

Appletons if my favorite by far, their reserve is nice and the 7 year is exelent, but for the price difference between them all I prefer the regular.

[pintoshine]

The herbal notes of the Gosling might be attributable to the combination of cane juice and French oak. I have gotten close to the flavor of Gosling by using my FFM cut by half with cane sugar and aging on French oak which was charred with mapp gas which leaves it less smoky. I started with a full stripping run with no cuts and finished with little heads but into the tails a bit but not as far as the cloudy stuff. It took a full year to develop the color and flavor of Gosling.

[bobtuse]

Hmm Funny you should mention that...Goslings and ginger beer with a squeeze of lime is a traditional East coast America sailing drink called a Dark and Stormy. A month or so ago I made my first batch of ginger beer to mix with Goslings for a sailing regatta called the Half Pint of Rum race, my foray into distilling was to make a rum to go with the homade ginger beer and do it all from scratch. just picked up 10 gal of molasses and will be starting the pugirum experiment tomorrow.......

good stuff those Dark and Stormies, used to hang out at a bar that would serve em up in pint glasses.....not too good for doin anythin the next day tho....

[punkin]

Yep, Bundaberg Rum package em in ready to drink stubbies in Australia. Bit sweet for my taste, but one or two is not bad...

[mikeac]

Yep, Bundaberg Rum package em in ready to drink stubbies in Australia. Bit sweet for my taste, but one or two is not bad...

UDL's have too much ginger beer and not enough rum IMHO, mix em' yourself!

[schnell]

I've enjoyed more than a few dark n' stormys.

Many rums are colored with carameI to darken them, I think goslings went with molasses instead. The dark black, yet soluble, pigmentation gives it away.

[Hawke]

Finally found a bottle. Was the blandest tasting rum I've ever had. Could have been a $7 vodka to me. Guess I just don't have the pallat for subtle flavors

[Mud]

seen it int he stores, never bothered to try it, considering the price they're asking for it.

Appletons if my favorite by far, their reserve is nice and the 7 year is exelent, but for the price difference between them all I prefer the regular.

Surprised to read that, VB. Never seen Appleton's Seven Year, but around here the Reserve is pretty expensive compared to Gosling's. They're both very good, in my opinion.

-Mud

[violentblue]

I've tried the appletons 7year, 12 year, barrel proof, reserve and the regular V/X
The V/X is the standard and quite nice, barrel proof tastes exactly the same as far as I can tell, but will knock you out a whole lot faster. The reserve 7 and 12 years are all quite nice, subtly higher in quality each more so than the last. but with such a nice rum as the standard, doesn't malke sence to me to pay extra for the the subtle differences. Drinking it neat you can immediatly tell the difference, but mixed with coke, its all the same.