HONDURAS

Salva Vida

A pale lager brewed by Cerveceria Hondurena in Tegucigalpa (as are the other Honduran beers), ‘Salva Vida’ translates to ‘Life Saver’ in English. It’s the most popular beer in Honduras and you’ll find it everywhere for a dollar in local shops or two dollars in tourist priced areas. With a slightly skunky aroma and a metallic finish, it’s thin yet malty. Darker than the other available lagers. Overall an easily drinkable beer. 4.8% Alcohol.

Barena

Barena is the Corona of Honduras. It’s light, smooth, and often served with lime. With a sweet corn aroma and a finish to match. It has a tendency to be overly foamy. Be careful when ‘cheers’-ing each other! 4.6% Alcohol.

Port Royal Export

Port Royal is a Bavarian style lager with a  slightly citrus overtone. Very clear in colour, with a corn finish. Thin and watery. Perfect for blazingly hot days on the beach. Named for Port Royal on the island of Roatan. 4.8% Alcohol.

Imperial

A pale lager, more amber in colour than the rest. Malty and sweet, light bodied. Comparable to Salva Vida, but not as widely available. 5.0% Alcohol.

BELIZE

Belikin Beer

Brewed by Belize Brewing Company in Belize City, Belikin Beer is a pale lager with a light caramelly flavour and golden colour.  4.8% Alcohol.

Also available is Belikin Stout. Pours dark and malty, but would be considered a lighter stout. 6.8% Alcohol.

The bottles for both are identical. You can tell them apart by the colour of the bottle cap. A blue cap is the stout. A green cap is the lager. Though if your bar has red lighting, there can be some mistaken identities.

Lighthouse Lager

Lighthouse Lager is also brewed by Belize Brewing Company. Very light in colour, with an aroma of grain/straw. Comes in a smaller bottle (237mL). It’s like the little brother of Belikin beer. 4.2% Alcohol.

Stay tuned for more frosty beverages. We’re currently sampling in Mexico! And don’t forget to check out the other beer reviews from our wanderings in the ‘Related Posts’ section below.

Read the original article here: The Beers of Honduras and Belize

Related posts:

1. From Roatan, Honduras to Placencia, Belize
2. Cerveza!
3. Bali Beers

Cerveza Imperial
Considered the national beer of Costa Rica by most Ticos and with undeniably the most awesome logo, Imperial is everywhere in Costa Rica and has been since 1924. Usually sold for $6-8 for a 6 pack from the store or up to $2 a beer at bars. Imperial is a pale lager or pilsener with 4.6% alcohol content. Similar to a budweiser, it was quite dry without too much flavour yet a light hoppy overtone.

Pilsen and Pilsen 6.0
The second most popular beer and my beer of choice in Costa Rica. Pilsen is a light pilsner. Similar to Imperial, but with a bit more noticeable bitterness. With normal Pilsen at 5.1% alcohol content and Pilsen 6.0 at; you guessed it, 6%. Pilsen is a little more bang for your buck. Yeah, I know. I may drink like a frat boy… But I do prefer the taste over Imperial which often left my mouth a bit dry.

Rock Ice and Rock Ice Limón
Rock Ice is a light lager. Brewed similarly to American ‘ice’ beers and with similar results. It’s a thin, fairly flavourless beer with a kick at 5.2%. Rock Ice Limón on the other hand barely qualifies as beer. It tastes… well, terrible. Like a sour lime cider that’s gone off, mixed with beer, and salt. I choked one of those down, then proceeded to try and pawn them off on house guests and strangers. We ended up throwing out the remainder of the sixpack.

Cerveza Bahia
I only ever came across one of these. I think it may actually have been from Guatemala. And I have no recollection of how it tasted. So yeah, this is a terrible review, but I like the can design.

Bavaria Dark (or Negra)
Not a traditional dark beer, Bavaria Dark is more of a dark amber ale, but a nice contrast to the rest of the field of pilsners and lagers. At 5%, with a nice sweet malty taste and smooth texture, but none of the heaviness of other dark beers, it reminds me of a Negra Modelo. Probably the most likely beer to end up in the bellies of the more selective beer drinkers.

Bavaria Gold
Another pale lager and similar in most regards, Bavaria Gold is considered the upscale version of the three. Expect to pay up to a dollar more in some bars.

Bavaria Light
A 3.4% low calorie beer, and it tastes like you’d expecct. No flavour. No body. Thin and watery.

Kaiser
Sorry folks, no picture and no review. This is Costa Rica’s only non-alcoholic beer.

Heineken
Brewed by Cerveceria de Costa Rica under license, Heineken is also commonly available throughout Costa Rica.

Toña
A 4.6% Nicaraguan lager, Toña is refreshing and light. Great after a hot day spent wandering the coblestone streets of colonial Granada. It’s my michelada beer. This picture has the Xmas edition label.

Victoria, Victoria Frost, Victoria Light
3 very light Nicaraguan beers. Best served with a slice of lime. Adding ice doesn’t kill it either as there isn’t much flavour to kill in my opinion.

Cuba Libre
One of what Florida Ice and Farm Co. calls it’s RTD (Ready to drink) line. Cuba Libre is an 8% alcohol, pre-mixed rum and cola in a can. Unfortunately, I found the cola far too sweet.

Bamboo Rum and Cola
Another premixed rum and cola at 7.5%. This one was more tolerable. But without actual Coke instead of the generic cola used, it’s still not to my taste.

Guaro
The local firewater. Made from sugarcane, there are both commercially produced 60 proof versions as well as moonshine made by locals. Clear, slightly sweet, and nearly tasteless like a vodka, it’s been known to sneak up on you after a few as there’s no way to tell how much the bartender has poured you when mixed with fruit juice or cola.

Flor de Caña (‘Flower of the Sugarcane’)
My all time favourite rum. Available all over Central America. Made from sugarcane molasses and slow aged in white oak barrels, Flor de Caña is a slightly sweet amber rum distributed by Compañía Licorera de Nicaragua in Chichigalpa, Nicaragua. Commonly available in Gold (aged 4 years), Black Label (5 years), Grand Reserve (7 years), Centenario (12 years), Centenario 21 (15 years – what the?), Centenario Gold (18 years), and Centenario Commemorative Edition (21 years). Flor de Caña also produces 3 white rums, all aged to 4 years. My personal favourite is the 7 year old Grand Reserve which I think is best served neat or on the rocks. A 750ml bottle goes for the price of $20 in Costa Rica and $14 in Nicaragua.

Santa brought me a bottle of the Centenario Commemorative Edition for Xmas which comes in a porcelain bottle and a gold embroidered cloth bag.

Others
For alternatives to alcoholic beverages, Costa Rica has a huge variety of fresh fruit juice (frescos) at fruit stands everywhere, great coffee, and the usual assortment of sodas, waters, and other imports.

Read the original article here: Costa Rican and Nicaraguan Beverages

Related posts:

1. Cerveza!
2. The Beers of Honduras and Belize
3. Week 56: Costa Rica and our “Casa del Surf”

We started off catching the local bus to Liberia from Tamarindo around 11am. It meanders through each locality on its way to Liberia and took us around 2.5 hours to arrive at the main bus station. A quick taxi ride back one station brought us to where the road from Tamarindo meets the main highway. Having no idea where we were, we had just missed our stop. The cost for the 1 minute taxi ride nearly equaled the $3 we had paid for our 2 hour bus trip. We stopped for a bite to eat at the restaurant beside the Ticabus stop and awaited 3:30 when the bus from San Jose to Nicaragua was supposed to arrive. 2 hours late, the bus finally showed up around 5:30. We kicked a couple people out of our seats and 6 hours after we began, we were finally on our way to Nicaragua!

An hour from the border, we began passing the queue of semi-trucks. Some of them would be waiting days for their turn to cross border inspection. There being only 2 lanes, we were passing in the oncoming lane and often had to stop while the bus driver finessed the bus past traffic on the soft shoulder.

Arriving at the border and exiting the bus to obtain our exit stamps, we were bombarded by money exchangers snapping their wads of Nicaraguan Cordobas. We then had to go through Nicaraguan customs where the bus was unloaded and searched. We gave our passports to the customs official and with our few bags, limited Spanish, and repeating “Turistas, turistas…” we were simply waved through.

A few short hours later, we arrived in Granada and grabbed a cab to our quaint colonial hotel near the central park, appropriately named “The Colonial Hotel”. 12 hours after leaving the house, we had arrived approximately 200km from our starting point. Kelly and I are pretty easy going, but our first experience with bus travel in Central America had proved to be a test of patience.

Granada itself is a quaint colonial city on the shore of Lake Nicaragua. It reminded us very much of our favourite town in Brazil, Paraty. Plenty of places to stop for a drink or a bite to eat. Many of them set up in the courtyard gardens of the old colonial homes. We wandered around the downtown district for a few days exploring the local markets, the bell tower of a church which gave a spectacular view of the city, and stopping in various cafes and street side bars with tables set up on the sidewalks.

At one of these sidewalk tables we met a local brother and sister with her American husband who were having a round of ‘Micheladas’. It’s a Latin American drink, sort of similar to having a Caesar or a Red Rooster with breakfast. A rumoured hangover cure (or just a refreshing afternoon drink), it’s made by pouring a beer into the juice of one lemon, a dash of soya sauce, Worcestershire, and Tabasco, salt, pepper, and ice. Some insist on adding a shot of tequila as well. It won’t replace Caesars for us Canadians, but it’s a nice alternative when Clamato juice is scarce.

I’m also a fan of the local Nicaraguan rum, which I was introduced to on my previous trip to Costa Rica 7 years ago. It’s made in Chichigalapa (just outside of Leon, about 2 hours north of Granada) at the Flor de Caña distillery. We tried to arrange a tour but unfortunately it wasn’t open on Sunday, or wasn’t open for just the 2 of us. We’re not sure which. It was the last day we had available for a tour before we headed home, so we opted instead for a boat ride amongst the nearby islands on Lake Nicaragua.

We were driven around a maze of small islands and given a fairly lengthy lesson of Granada’s history by our guide. We stopped to roam an old fort and then floated around multi-million dollar homes owned by Nicaragua’s elite, stopping to feed a troop of monkeys that were rescued by a doctor who resides on a nearby island. At one point, we were given the option to go for a swim… but after seeing the amount of trash on the shores and viewing the framed jaws of the bull sharks that apparently still patrol the waters of Lake Nicaragua, we passed and stayed dry.

After 5 days in Granada, we boarded the Ticabus again to return to Costa Rica. Things began a little smoother with the bus arriving from Managua on-time around 1pm. We went through the border and arrived in Liberia around 7pm. We had some conflicting information on when the last bus to Tamarindo was, so we ended up waiting for 2 hours with a group of surfers who were also en-route to Tamarindo, before it became apparent we had missed the last bus. We arranged for a large van to drive all 9 of us (plus bags and surfboards) home. It was a tight fit in a slow van, but eventually we arrived home around 10pm. Only 9 hours this time… not bad! ;)

We’re happy to be back with the comforts of home and have since spent nearly everyday on the beach soaking up the sun. It’s unlikely we’ll need to do another visa run following the next 3 months since we’ll be moving on, but we will have to follow the same route once more when we make our transition to Honduras. Now that I’m in the know, I’ll be packing a few Micheladas to-go to ease the journey.

A few more Granada pictures:

Read the original article here: Nicaragua Visa Run from Tamarindo

Related posts:

1. Our ATV Tour from Tamarindo
2. From Tamarindo, Costa Rica to Roatan, Honduras
3. Week 56: Costa Rica and our “Casa del Surf”

Bintang is the staple beer of Bali. Available everywhere, it’s your typical pilsener around 5%. At times it seems everyone in Bali is wearing a Bintang branded shirt. Good flavour, except for the one I had that tasted like gasoline. The locals get 2000 Rupiah ($0.02) for returning the bottles, and I guess even power washing the bottles won’t remove the tang of gas. *Note, this image wan’t taken by Kelly. We must have forgotten to take our own picture after having a few too many Bintangs.

Bali Hai Beer is utterly tasteless. It has no flavour whatsoever. We poured this one out.

The only thing with less flavour than Bali Hai Beer was Bali Hai Draft Beer.

Anker beer was quite good. Pretty similar to Bintang.

Kuda Putih was my favourite alternative to Bintang beer. It had good flavour, and I got some kind of juvenile pleasure from saying the name with a bad Balinese accent. Plus, check out that alcohol induced horse rage!

Storm makes 4 great beers. The Tropical is a nice fruity ale. The Golden, a light hoppy ale. The Brown, a sweetly smooth dark ale. And the Pale, is a good well… pale ale. Harder to come by, we didn’t stumble across these too often and actually had to make note of the few places to get them. Even the corner stores and grocery stores didn’t seem to stock them.

Bali and the rest of Indonesia is undergoing a liquor shortage due to the government crackdown on illegally imported alcohol. As such, import liquor is expensive and major brands can be hard to come by. A 26 ounce bottle of Canadian whiskey was more than $50, as were most bottles of wine. As such, I opted to try a local brand for a few dollars.

When it’s this bad for you, they call you Mister. It appears that the downside of drinking local alcohol stocks is the monumental hangover the following day. I don’t know if there are some serious impurities in there or what, but two or three ounces of this put the hurt on me the next day. Maybe it was the green tea they suggested I mix it with by taping a can to the bottle? An odd taste. Not one I’ll be repeating soon.

Cheers!

Read the original article here: Bali Beers

Related posts:

1. The Beers of Honduras and Belize
2. Cerveza!
3. Week 38: Welcome to Bali

So what does a nerd do offline in a tropical country? He stays hydrated…

Tiger Beer
My personal favourite. Malty and a touch sweet. Originating from Malaysia, but also brewed in Thailand. More than 3 of these could be considered a meal.

Mekhong Whiskey
I actually had to go online and look at pictures of whiskey on Google to find out what this is. There’s not a word of English on the bottle. Thai whiskey is potent, guaranteed to give you a wicked hangover, and has been rumoured to have some slight hallucinogenic properties. All I know is you put it in a bucket with Coke and Red Bull. Yum.

Phuket Beer
Brewed by the Phuket Brewery, this light lager is… light. Almost flavourless in fact.

Singha Beer
The staple of Thailand. Available everywhere. Light and refreshing, it goes with everything. Like breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Leo Beer
A close runner up to Singha. Also very light and enjoyable. Probably the cheapest, good beer available almost everywhere.

SiamSato Cider
What we thought was a beer, but turned out to be a cloyingly sweet cider. Lesson learned, if it doesn’t say ‘beer’ on the bottle, don’t assume it is one. We ended up pouring this one out.

Archa Beer
Also a good light beer. We haven’t seen this one again since Phuket.

Mai Tai Guy
This little pineapple headed fellow let us drink his fruity brains. Yum. I’m a tropical zombie.

Chang Beer
The other staple beer of Thailand. Stronger than Singha, this is the backpacker’s beer of choice. You buy less liquor but it gets you drunk quicker. Famous for the ‘Changover’ the next day, it was once rumoured to have formalin added to it as a preservative.

Cheers Beer
Norm would be all over this. It’s light and good like so many of the other Thai beers. Really, in a blind taste test I would be hard pressed to tell one beer from another.

We’ve done a bit more than just drinking for the last 3 weeks. It’s currently Songkran, the Thai New Years where a ‘cleansing’ takes place in the form of a country wide water fight. It’s a little more chill here on Koh Tao than when I experienced it 6 years ago on Koh Samui. There I was barely able to get a block out of the house before being soaked from head to toe and surrounded by crowds of belligerently amusing Aussies. Here on Koh Tao, it’s a sleepy little dive town where the festivities don’t really get started till later in the evenings.

We’ve had some really good meals. La Matta is a great little Italian place on the main strip of Mae Haad that serves wood fired oven pizzas and hand made pasta. Local Thai food is spicy, cheap, and everywhere. I had 3 dinners the other night. Seafood beach BBQ is everywhere and very fresh. We’ve become late night regulars at the local pancake stands where they’ll whip you up a chocolate nutella pancake with condensed milk in 30 seconds. Needless to say, I’m packing on the pounds.

There’s been some rioting in Bangkok lately, but looks to have been resolved without closing the airport. There were a few deaths and a multitude of injuries when protesters and the military clashed once again. The issue is the same as when the country closed the airport last December, 2 political factions are fighting for control and one is trying to oust the current PM. Thankfully, we’ve been pretty much unaffected out here on the islands.

The fact that we only have about 3 more months before we head home has started to settle in. We’ve vowed to cut back our baggage size to something a little more manageable and do more traveling in the coming few months, rather than settling into an apartment. I’m stoked about doing a motorcycle tour of Borneo and both Kelly and I are contemplating Bali or eastern Malaysia for some more diving.

We’re looking forward to coming home for a visit. We’ll be spending a week or two in Vancouver, then heading to the Island, Kelowna, etc… to see family. Funnily enough, the most expensive part of our whole trip could be the time we spend in Vancouver. Anyone have a good hookup for hotel deals near the downtown core? Following that, we’re thinking that we’ll be moving on to Central America for a while. Pending economical conditions and homesickness of course. We’re looking forward to seeing you all.

Read the original article here: Back Online and a Buck a Beer

Related posts:

1. Random Factoid: San Miguel makes good, cheap beer.
2. Dumaguete and Dauin Online Resources
3. Week 21: Making Plans

#1. Try San Miguel Strong Ice

We’ve never seen anyone drinking it. Is it a cider? Nope, it turns out that it’s yet another pale pilsen. This time its ice filtered and packing a bit more of a punch. 6.3% alcohol, making it a close second to Red Horse Strong Beer.

As usual with San Miguel products, there’s an entertaining slogan on the can:

And there’s cereal in there, so it’s gotta be good for you…

#2. Pay the diving bill

We’re going to post a complete budget in the near future so you can see what the last 6 months here has cost, but doing 40+ dives each, with equipment rentals and sanctuary fees has cost roughly $3200 for the two of us. Not including my dive courses. Not too shabby.

As a result of spending so much time underwater, we’ve become close friends with a number of the dive masters and the team of guys who do the heavy lifting for us. Which leads us to:

#3. Going away party

Cost of getting everyone drunk as skunks? $30. That’s a kind of awesome that’s just not found back home in Canada.

We didn’t actually accomplish that much as far as the checklist goes since we’ve been swamped with work. We were hoping to go to Malapascua to see thresher sharks and Luzon to see whale sharks, as well as visit El Nido and some other areas of Palawan, but with the limited internet access in those parts it looks like that will have to wait till the end of our trip. We have to come back to the Philippines to fly home in August and will probably spend a few more weeks in some of the more remote regions, so the checklist lives on.

Stay tuned for our Philippines 6 month wrap up post.

Read the original article here: Week 25: Things to do before leaving the Philippines

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1. Week 47: Diving Sipadan and Mabul
2. Philippines, Thailand, and Bali travel budgets
3. Learning to Dive in the Philippines

Early in the week we had Patrick from Dive Society over for a lasagna dinner accompanied by a few bottles of wine. He’s given his notice at the dive shop where he works as a dive instructor and will be becoming a nomadic yogi rambling through Bali in the near future. We hope to meet up again in Thailand in a couple months. Patrick is also an illustrator. Check out his portfolio site if you’ve got a minute.

A couple days later, we invited Andrew and Chantal by for my special brined chicken dinner. Dinner was a success, but it may have been turkey in disguise because within an hour, I was unconscious and in bed. Coming back from the CR, the bed just looked too comfy and resting my eyes for 5 seconds was inevitable. Tryptophan or too much rum? I suspect too much work. Having been up since 6am for conference calls pretty much every day this week, I was pretty worn down by the evening. Sorry guys! Next time, it’s Red Bull and Jägermeister shots after dinner for everyone! ;)

Saturday we went to El Dorado for a few drinks. We met up with Raina, a photographer from Toronto who contacted us through the blog a few months back and ended up coming to vacation in Dauin. Oddly enough, we actually have some mutual friends back in Canada. It’s a small, small world. She swears she’s not stalking us, but I’m still adding her to my limited profile on Facebook, just in case. Just kidding Raina!!! I know you’re watching.

Sunday, we went for a dive at a site called Masaplod South. I’ve been there before and it’s one of my favourite sites. There are some nice coral slopes with tons of stuff to find. Some highlights were 2 frogfish, a mandarin fish, a couple pipefish, a blue ribbon eel, and a tiny cuttlefish. There’s also tons of nudibranch amongst the corals. The last time I was there I saw 4 or 5 huge cuttlefish the size of my forearm around 27m. Unfortunately the visibility wasn’t fantastic for this dive, but I still enjoyed it. Having become familiar with a few dive sites, we’re definitely spotting a lot more fishy creatures.

On Monday (Kelly will kill me for crossing over into the new week!), Patrick invited us and Raina over for dinner. We had a nice stir fry with a bottle of wine, a couple beers, and some funky gin/lime shooters. Dancing ensued. Puppies were played with. Photos were taken. I highly doubt Raina made it to the 6am Siquijor ferry the next day.

Lucky for us, there’s still 3 more weeks of saying farewell to come!

Read the original article here: Week 22: Dinner Parties with Friends

Related posts:

1. Week 8: Boracay
2. Week 13: 3 Months Housewarming Party
3. Week 25: Things to do before leaving the Philippines

How cheap you ask? Well, at today’s exhcange rate of 39 Philippine Pesos for 1 Canadian Dollar, it’s a mere $0.71 for a can of Pale Pilsen from the supermarket. Now the question isn’t my beer budget. It’s how many situps I need to do to burn off 6 cans of beer. :)

Read the original article here: Random Factoid: San Miguel makes good, cheap beer.

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1. Random Factoid: The Philippines is the Text Messaging Capitol of the World
2. Random Factoid: Cheese Rings are awesome…
3. Cerveza!

On Wednesday, Andrew & Chantal (friends who we met on the Bias trip) had a birthday party for Chantal’s mother and invited us over for dinner. Chicken adobo and spareribs, with rice and salad. Yumm. Funnily enough, after showing up we pieced together where we had seen them before. When we first came to Dumaguete Kelly had gone to check out a few possible rental places while I was laid up sick in bed. She was talking to a person about seeing a place and when she walked out, Andrew had walked in the door. The next day when I was feeling better, we went to take a look at the place, but it turned out it had rented the day before to Andrew. They had just beaten us to it. It wasn’t furnished, so we likely wouldn’t have taken it, but it’s funny how small a town it is. Here we were having dinner on the front lawn, chatting with the owners who had shown us the place months ago. At Andrews party, we also ran into Greg who had been at a spontaneous party night a month or two back when I was kissing cockroaches. Again, such a small town.

We spent the next 2 days pre-cooking for our party. We invited the whole El Dorado Resort staff and Dive Society to swing by as well as a few long term foreigner friends we’ve made. So we were expecting about 30 people (those who weren’t working that evening) to show up. We hand rolled almost one hundred soft taco shells (they were supposed to be burrito wraps, but we switched flour brands at the last minute and they started to shrink as soon as I stopped rolling them… Too much gluten?), and made big batches of pulled pork, chicken, ground beef, and refried beans. Kelly made 3 different salsas, and Spanish rice.

Needless to say, the party was a big hit. All the dive shop boys came by, and while they didn’t all understand the concept of a taco (most just piled up a plate of fixins)… it was a hilarious time with plenty of dancing and jokes. Later in the evening, more of the resort staff showed up after work and “Chef” even asked me how to make taco wraps, so they must have turned out okay. We partied on until one in the morning, then leaving the damage assessment for the next morning, headed to bed.

Yesterday was cleanup and recovery. All in all, it wasn’t too bad of a scene after a little garbage detail and mopping, but we were paying the price for drinking cheap Tanduay rum the night before. I spent most of the day laying in the hammock one of the Swiss dive instructors brought us for a housewarming gift and Kelly laid in bed all day watching movies.

Since recovering we’ve vowed to do things differently next time. No cooking. Making those taco wraps by hand was excrutiatingly difficult with the heat and all the hand rolling with a wine bottle. Andrew suggested that the next time we hire one of the kebab street vendors to come by and cook all night long. 5P for each kebab. Sounds like a plan to me!

Read the original article here: Week 13: 3 Months Housewarming Party

Related posts:

1. Week 22: Dinner Parties with Friends
2. Week 11: Getting settled in Dauin
3. Week 39: 9 months in Asia and the things we (will) miss.

** Note, this taste test is amateur at best. There was no rinsing of glasses. No spitting. No extended pinky fingers… and no monocles.

Tanduay Distillers was founded by three Spanish immigrants in 1854 and won it’s first international award for rum excellence in 1876. Winning over 100 awards since, it’s Premium 1854 blend has alone won over 50 international honours.

Tanduay Gold Seal
5 Year Old Dark Rhum
750ml
45 pesos
1/10

Smells and tastes like gasolina. It’s an odd pink colour and numbs the tongue on contact. Due to the horrendous hangover and stomach aches the next day after doing only one or two ounces, its only good for removing paint. At 45P per bottle ($1.10 CDN), likely cheaper than paint remover.

**Hangover noted from extensive previous testing…

The label reads: “This Rhum is guaranteed to be oak aged and bottled under government supervision.” Phew! At least we know who’s trying to poison us.

Tanduay Primiero
Ocho Anos Ron (8 Year Old Rum) Reserva Especial
700ml
68 pesos
3/10

According to the label it’s ‘The Brandy of Rums’… Whatever the hell that means…? Also, this is the only bottle with a Spanish influence on the label with rum spelled “ron” and the age also indicated in Spanish. Still on the pinkish side. Smoother and smokier than the five year old… but still a touch harsh. At least I can feel my tongue again.

Tanduay Superior
12 Year Old Rum
750ml
145 pesos
7/10

Smells and tastes like a good sugar cane rum should, smooth and slightly sweet. Brownish gold in colour. Oak barrel aged. Smokey with slightly nutty overtones without tasting woody. A bargain for the price and puts most rums commercial available in North American to shame.

Tanduay Premium 1854
15 Year Old Rum
700ml
265 pesos
9/10

Golden in colour. Rich caramel overtones. Smells and tastes like gold. Second only to my favourite rum of all time, Flor de Caña – 7 year, from Nicaragua. At 265P per bottle ($7 CDN)… we have a winner.

More info about Tanduay rums available here: http://www.rum.cz/galery/sas/ph/tanduay/ and here: http://www.tanduay.com/

Arr Mateys. It’s a pirates life for me. Yarr.

Read the original article here: Tanduay Taste Test – Rhum ron, rum.

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1. Costa Rican and Nicaraguan Beverages