The Worst Rum List.

Thanks for the Rum Barrel tips.

Lemon Extract is super expensive, isn't it? I remember buying that stuff, years ago, for the cruton fire thing. Maybe my Bacardi 151 will be relegated to being lit on fire.

On 2012-10-29 09:34, Luckydesigns wrote:
Lemon Extract is super expensive, isn't it?

I Googled lemon extract before I wrote my reply and saw it listed between $2 (2 oz, Wilton brand) and $30 (32 oz, McCormick brand) plus shipping. So I thought I might be able to find it locally at a grocery store, specialty store, or Penzey's. My guess is that real lemon extract is an oil-type liquid, so I would have to be careful to avoid flavorings and other fake stuff. I'm hoping that it may be a relatively common baking ingredient.

Good point about croutons and the potential for burnt bread smell. That seems to be another good reason for using a sugar cube or spent lime shell. Now I have three things to test - crouton, sugar cube, lime shell - and with identical amounts of burnable liquid see how long and how well each burns. 151 dies down pretty quickly. It would be neat if lemon extract had a brighter flame and lasted longer and then also smelled good. (Yup, I want it all...!!!)

As of 10/29/2012, Penzey's web site shows the following quantities and prices for lemon extract:

Lemon Extract 16 fl. oz. Bottle 93211 30.99
Lemon Extract 2 fl. oz. Bottle 93237 5.49
Lemon Extract 4 fl. oz. Bottle 93253 9.49
Lemon Extract 8 fl. oz. Bottle 93282 16.99

I'm fairly certain I would find this in one of my better-stocked supers, or Whole Foods, or Fresh Market, or Trader Joe's, etc. Fortunately there's a Penzey's down the street from me, but I'm going to look in my local supers first.

Quite a few places use sugar cubes in their fire drinks. Trader Sam's uses 3 in their Uh Oa! bowl and they light them on fire and chant as you throw cinnamon on the flame to make it spark. Then (before it burns I am sure) they stir it all into your bowl and it is ready for you to drink. Okolemaluna used to use a squeezed lime as a wick for their Volcano Bowl.

Bacardi is a rum I rarely use, but I do have it on hand usually for those emergencies when you run out of a bunch of the good stuff. I only use Bacardi 151 to light on fire.

Unfortunately, Trader Vic's rums are terrible. What makes it worse is that it drags a legendary name down. If I happen to be at a TV's, I request that they use other rums to make my drink. The rums taste like a family of rats continuously t-bagged themselves in the rum barrel after dipping their little rat scrotums in formaldehyde.

[ Edited by: Tonga Tiki 2012-10-30 18:03 ]

It feels like we've gotten away from the topic by discussing lighting things on fire and such, but 1 more thought on lemon extract: I picked up a 16 ounce bottle of "First Street" (house) brand at Smart and Final for between 5-10 dollars. 2 years later, I'm not even halfway through it. No need to pay a premium for a name brand here; it's fuel.

Okole maluna!

Kevin

Exhibit "A": using lemon extract.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled "worst rum" thread.

kevin

On 2012-10-30 17:57, Tonga Tiki wrote:
The rums taste like a family of rats continuously t-bagged themselves in the rum barrel after dipping their little rat scrotums in formaldehyde.

That's a graphic image! :lol:

On 2012-10-30 17:57, Tonga Tiki wrote:
The rums taste like a family of rats continuously t-bagged themselves in the rum barrel after dipping their little rat scrotums in formaldehyde.

Whoooa!!
don't hold back, tell us what you really think.
:wink:

Jeff(btd)

I will say that I have learned some about rum. The rum that started this post was bad, to me....at first... That being said, I have tried a new rum that tastes extremely similar. It is Agua Libre. The "bad taste" was olives!!! at least the bartender got me to agree that it did seem olivey. Go figure! The bartender (pushing Agua Libre, St. George Spirits) made a drink on the spot that had chartreuse (funky) and somthin else that was "funky". The drink was very good! I hope Chris remembers when I go back.

Maybe if the rum tastes "bad" it is just something we are not familiar with? :/

As far as "rat scrotum goes", I'll let Tonga Tiki be the expert. :lol:

I am going to go back to the rum that started this thread and make that rum taste good in a drink, even if i get ill doing so!

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Spiced rum and Coke is actually quite delicious. The rest suck nards. Yes, nards.

Trader Vic's Rum factory employee that just applied for workers comp..

Oh..and the paraphrased title of the thread has the wrong implication. It ignores the fact that the rat scrotums are the flavor delivery system.

[ Edited by: Tonga Tiki 2012-11-05 03:55 ]

On 2012-11-04 17:21, Mr. NoNaMe wrote:
The bartender (pushing Agua Libre, St. George Spirits) made a drink on the spot that had chartreuse (funky) and somthin else that was "funky". The drink was very good!

Chartreuse... Green Chartreuse? This would be, to me, one of the most widely-imitated liqueurs I've run into in my travels. I've sampled and purchased this "minty" flavored and colored drink at several abbeys/closters/monasteries/distilleries in Europe. Each time I am surprised, "Hey, this tastes like Green Chartreuse..." There was something about this particular flavor combination that made people go nuts hundreds of years ago. So much so that this type of product is still made in many places to this day. While not quite as strong in flavor as Pernod, it still is a liqueur which heads in that direction of flavor potency...

Lemon Extract vs. Bacardi 151 "Burn Test" Results

I went to the store and bought lemon extract, 2 ounces, for just under $5. I tested with three different soak-up materials, plus one surprise. Here are my results, with my conclusion at the very end.

I used 1/4 teaspoon of Bacardi 151 and 1/4 teaspoon of lemon extract in all tests except with the spent lime shell where I used 1/2 teaspoon due to the sheer size of the lime shell.

1. Crouton, 1/4 tsp of burn fluids. Bacardi 151 gave a nice orange flame 2" high which took a full 2 minutes to drop down to 1/4" high. It was burned out at 2m 30s, the crouton was half black and not entirely burned up, and the crouton definitely left a burnt bread small behind. Lemon extract gave a nice orange flame 3" high for 2 minutes before dropping down to 1/4" high. It burned out at 2m 20s, the bread was left completely black and left burnt bread smell behind but with a pleasant and very light lemony scent.

2. Sugar cube, 1/4 tsp of burn fluids. Bacardi 151 burned with a blue hard-to-see 1.5" flame. It burned down to 1/4" after 1m 20s. It burned out completely at 1m 30s and left the cube slightly melted. The lemon extract burned with a nice 3" yellow flame and took 1m 10s to burn down to 1/4". It burned out at 1m 25s and left quite a bit of melted and caramelized sugar stuck to the plate.

3. Spent lime shell, 1/2 tsp of burn fluids. Bacardi 151 burned with a 3" hard-to-see flame, reached 1/4" height at 2.5 minutes and was burned out by 3.5 minutes. Lemon extract burned with a nice 3" yellow flame and achieved nice full-flame coverage of the lime shell. It reached 1/4" height at 2.5 minutes and burned out completely by 4 minutes.

4. Small broccoli floret, 1/4 tsp of burn fluids. Bacardi 151 burned with a 3" orange flame. It burned down to 1/4" in 1m 35s, then burned out at 1m 50s. The lemon extract burned with a nice 4" yellow flame and reached 1/4" flame height at 1m 40s. It took 2m 20s for the flame to burn out. In both cases there was a tiny but negligible amount of "burned broccoli" smell.

Conclusions: Lemon extract is surprisingly 83% alcohol and consistently outperformed Bacardi 151 in both color and flame height. It also often contributed to a nice aroma even though it was very slight. This is the burn fluid of choice in my opinion and is VERY flammable due to high alcohol content. (Kids, get your parents to help you!) Croutons were nice and effective but had too much burnt smell at the end in my opinion. Sugar cubes -- do not use with the very hot-burning lemon extract -- the carmelized sugar really stuck to the glazed plate and was difficult to clean and remove. Broccoli worked suprisingly well and was a fun improv in my test. Lime shells were nice and had quite a bit of capacity for the flammable liquid. My final preference was for the lemon extract with the lime shells - you can't beat the combination of bright-colored flame and fluid capacity of the lime shell. Also, since lemon extract is very flammable, it's nice to have it contained within the lime shell.

There you have it. I hope this research helps.

Doctor, what about the traditional use of brandy as the burn fuel?

Also, how do you recommend using the sugar, light in a spoon and then plop onto the drink surface, or...?

Brandy was outside the scope of my tests. For sugar, I saw that I would avoid using sugar on a solid surface like in the volcano portion of a volcano bowl -- caramelized sugar is much too hard to clean up afterwards. But for use on the surface of a drink, sugar wouldn't create the same kind of problem.

You definitely get extra points if you use broccoli!!! heh....

On 2012-10-30 17:57, Tonga Tiki wrote:
The rums taste like a family of rats continuously t-bagged themselves in the rum barrel after dipping their little rat scrotums in formaldehyde.

Of course this begs the question: just how many rat scrotums dipped in formaldehyde have you tasted?

On 2012-11-05 08:35, AceExplorer wrote:
Chartreuse... Green Chartreuse?... While not quite as strong in flavor as Pernod, it still is a liqueur which heads in that direction of flavor potency...

I was at Tiki-Ti last week and Mike Jr. said they have an off-menu drink called the "Green Lizard". It's Green Chatreuse mixed with 151 rum.

I was going to try it but I had a Ray's Mistake instead.

On 2012-10-25 16:12, Luckydesigns wrote:
In the rum barrel that I made last night, I used Lemonhart (151), Appleton Estate V/X, and Bacardi 151 for the light puerto rican rum.

2 151's !! Ha ha. :)

Dude, what happened to the El Dorado I gave you ?? Swap out the Bacardi with that.

EDIT - Oh wait, it calls for a white rum. Never mind.

[ Edited by: JOHN-O 2012-11-06 16:33 ]

Also Mr. NoNaMe, why did you change the title of this thread? It's very inflammatory !! :(

On 2012-11-06 16:43, JOHN-O wrote:
Also Mr. NoNaMe, why did you change the title of this thread? It's very inflammatory !! :(

I think it kind of sounds like the title of a "Dead Kennedys" LP :)

On 2012-11-06 16:43, JOHN-O wrote:
Also Mr. NoNaMe, why did you change the title of this thread? It's very inflammatory !! :(

Because I cracked up when I read it. I feel so ashamed.

On 2012-11-06 16:54, Atomic Tiki Punk wrote:

On 2012-11-06 16:43, JOHN-O wrote:
Also Mr. NoNaMe, why did you change the title of this thread? It's very inflammatory !! :(

I think it kind of sounds like the title of a "Dead Kennedys" LP :)

We've got a bigger problem now: I'm almost outta rum!