Craft Producers Usher In The Triumphant Return Of New England Rum

Photo courtesy Privateer Rum, made all fancy looking by John McCartny

When I’m not writing about booze or cooking 17 meals a day for my voracious daughter, I can occasionally be found judging spirits and cocktails for various competitions. My favorite is the John Barleycorn Spirits Awards, not least because it was founded by my friend, writer/bartender/jack-of-all-boozy-trades John McCarthy. It’s always fun to taste spirits blind and then find out what I liked and didn’t like after the fact. It’s fun to see how preconceptions about a brand can play into your enjoyment of them. Liking a distiller and liking his/her whiskey are not, it turns out, the same thing!

Anyway, the competition is just a part of the larger John Barleycorn Society, which is, as its website states, “a group of spirits journalists seeking to honor excellence in all facets of the category.” So of course it was only a matter of time before McCarthy launched Barleycorn Drinks, a blog devoted to all things liquor-related. I’m honored to have one of the first entries, a piece about New England rums — a subject about which I’m slightly obsessed. Go over and have a look around. It’ll be worth your while, I guarantee.