Wednesday 2 September 2015

Bardinet Rhum Negrita - How bad can it be?

As I've mentioned in other reviews here I am a sucker for good packaging, so when I saw this little beauty peeking out of the shelves of a French supermarché you can imagine, I had to have it and the price point of a princely €3.49 doesn't hurt either.

Johnny Ive eat your heart out
Joking aside I was curious to see what on earth you get for that little money, would it be an abomination like Stroh or a French bargain like the Plantation range

From what I can see the Bardinet company has been around since 1875 and are a bit of a French spirits behemoth with a facility that ages 30,000 hectolitres at any one time while storing another 60,000.  To put that in perspective that's nearly 4.3 MILLION bottles of spirit sitting and maturing so, I figure, they must know what they're doing.

Information about the rhum itself is not easy to find, it's a rhum agricole being made from cane juice as opposed to molasses in traditional rum production (which the French term rhum industriel). The bottle itself only states "Iles Francaises du Rhum appellation d'origine" which just means it's from the French Rhum islands.  Others online have suggested it's a blend of rhums from Martinique, Guadeloupe and Réunion which certainly fits.

Once it hits the glass you get an initial huge hit of oaky vanilla that's quite overpowering but fades away quite quickly leaving not much behind to be honest, really inhaling deeply there's some fruit and the typical grassy agricole funky smell but you have to hunt for it.

Once you take a sip there's a lot of oak and a peppery spicy dryness that's not unpleasant but fades off very quickly leaving a slightly medicinal taste which I found oddly enjoyable in a Laphroaig kind of way.

There's a definite burn on the way down but nothing too harsh.  Now this is clearly not intended to be a sipping rum and, much like Stroh a lot of the material online is around cooking with it but using it in a rum and coke worked pretty well with the pepperiness holding up well to the coke sweetness.

Overall for €3.49 you really have nothing to lose with this, it's a serviceable rhum, not a great example of the agricole form by any stretch of the imagination but for sticking in a rum and coke while on your holidays it does the job.


12 comments:

  1. Hello. In France we usually use this one for pastry and cooking!

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  2. Oh man, I just cracked open a 1L bottle of it. It's really, really bad for drinking straight and even pepsi ain't making it better. I'd so rather some Stroh 60 right now.

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  3. Horrible stuff! I compared it to some of Sainsbury's own and Sainsburys was far smoother and sweeter.

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  4. The 50-degree alcohol one is the one to drink.

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    1. This product is very offensive to Black Women. Why does your lable have a picture of a Black Woman on it and the lable is too close to the word Negro. Its really a racist product and if it was sold in my state i would Boycott it and have it pull from the shelves ...

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    2. As someone who isn't white, I actually don't mind the name. Negrita isn't actually offensive in any kind of way. My friends and family actually call me negrita

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  5. Cool you inscribe, the info is really salubrious further fascinating, I'll give you a connect to my scene. Steel Bite pro

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  6. Picked up a 1940's bottle of Rhum Negrita "Old Nick Rum" (Jamaica & French West Indies Rum) at auction. Bottle looked neat, hopefully the older distilling processes had more care to it and make it more palatable than what I am reading here on this website.

    Previously I picked up a 1953 Bottle of Rhum Martinique Vieux Extra at auction. Interesting taste, almost a slight charcoal-like notes, but smoother than expected. Drinking it you can "taste" the islands. I've used it for both sipping and experimented by adding it to some seafood risotto and it enhanced it greatly.

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    1. So I decided to buy a 1950s bottle of Rum Negrita because I did not want to pop open the bottle of 1940's. All I can say is the 1950's has a superb flavor profile for a nice dark Rhum/Rum. Comparing the comments above about Rhum Negrita being bottom shelf liquor to my tasting of the 1950s bottle, all I can think is that the company is now cutting corners which has eroded the quality in the newer production. Bottom line, the 1950's Rhum/Rum Negrita was delicious and I can only image the 1940's bottle being the same.

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  7. Agricole rhums are very hard to come by here in Brazil. Does anyone know if can use the negrita's collection (white, dark, anejo) as a replacement for agricole rhums, is negrita really considered agricole ?

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  8. The older Rhum Negritas may be Agricole; perhaps pre-1960's as at that time the Rhum/Rum was produced in Jamaica & Martinique. Typically in the Caribbean sugar cane is used, but molasses is sometimes used as well. Rhum typically means Sugar Cane based and Rum typically means molasses based. The 1940's and 1950's bottle of Rhum Negrita state both Rhum and Rum on the bottle and that it is a blended rum so I guess it uses both sugar cane and molasses.

    As for the current Rhum Negrita in production, I would defer to those above who use it on a regular basis. They indicate it is used for baking and a cheap mixer. All I can say is that my 1950 bottle was nothing short of superb.

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  9. Found this one on duty free on offer, around £6 for 1L bottle. Vanilla is so strong, that it taste artificial. I drink it with mixer, but I use lemon to cut that vanilla and for this price it's a good drink. No, I would not buy it again.

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