Ho Ho Ho And A Bottle Of Rum: Bottles To Gift To Yourself

I had to taste all these rums. For journalistic purposes, you understand. (Photo by me)

Back in the early days of the Obama administration, I wrote a lot of … you know, I don’t actually know what they were called back then. I suppose they were “round-ups,” where the author would, um, round up a whole bunch of spirits and make an article out of the capsule descriptions/reviews. I gradually stopped doing them, and now I remember why — they’re a lot of work for one article. I much prefer writing a “Whisk(e)y Of The Week”-type thing, where I can do a leisurely deep dive into one spirit, rather than trying to cram a bunch of information AND tasting notes into a paragraph or so. But in this case, I’d amassed a lot of rums I wanted to write about, and since it’s holiday time and all, why not shine the spotlight on all of them at once?

When I belatedly bounced the idea off the folks at Forbes, they said, absolutely, go for it, with two caveats. It can’t be a gift guide, and it can’t be a best-of. But they did love the title I’d come up with: “Ho Ho Ho And A Bottle Of Rum.” I don’t really do best-of listicles (which is what we call round-ups now — at least that’s what writers call them), and when I thought about it, I realized that rum is such a misunderstood spirit. Why would you want to give your boss or your uncle or your doorman a bottle of, say, Foursquare Magisterium — a beautiful, elegant, and not exactly cheap sipping spirit — and have them think, oh great, I’ll put this in my daiquiris when the weather gets warm? Better to get them a bottle of Blue Label or Hennessy or Veuve Cliquot and save the rum for yourself. And thus was born the slightly Grinchy but well-meaning theme of the round-up.

Why don’t you go ahead and have a read? And if you know someone who really loves good rum, you have my permission to gift any of the nine I reviewed. But you really should get them for yourself as well. I’m just saying. Link is -> HERE <-.