- Coming up in this video,
in my quest to find the best Spiced Rum.
I have been to, I was gonna say ASDA then,
Aldi, I've been to Aldi
and I've got their own Spiced Rum.
This is Seadog, sorry, The Old Sea Dog, Black Spiced Rum
and I'm gonna tell you all about it,
what it smells like, tastes like, and how to best enjoy it
as an hiball.
Stay tuned.
(cocktail shaker clunking)
Hey Spiced Rum fans, I am Steve the Barman
and I'm hoping these videos are gonna help you drink,
serve and enjoy better quality Spiced Rum drinks.
That is what I'm all about.
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Right then gang, I've been getting loads of comments
recently and DMs, Steve what do you think of
certain supermarket Spiced Rum?
Whether it's Tescos, Asda, Aldi, Lidl.
So I thought I would start to make a crack
on the supermarket Spiced Rums.
In all honestly I had held off
because I'm kind of expecting a Spiced Rum boom
to sort of come over 2020
and I'd half expected for certain supermarkets
to de-list their original Spiced Rums
and then come back on the market
with more premium Spiced Rums
so it was kind of why I was holding off
but there's certain ones that have been around now
that have got quite a good reputation
so I thought let's just sod it,
let's just go for it.
So the first one I'm gonna start off with
is Aldi's and it's the old, gotta get this right,
The Old Seadog Black Spiced.
Now, there's one thing that I wanna point out
with this one as well.
We were actually having a chat this Monday,
we were actually having a chat in The Spiced Rum community
last night because people this was kind of moulded on Kraken.
To my mind, I've not even tasted it, opened, it,
smelt it, no idea.
To my mind the purely, the only similar resemblance
is in the fact that it's the colour, okay.
I have got Kraken 'cause I've got two of these Spiced Rums
that I'm gonna do.
I've got a Kraken there so I'm gonna do it side by side.
I don't think this is purposefully aimed at Kraken at all
purely by this comment.
A premium Black Spiced Rum based spirit drink, okay,
with notes of sweet vanilla, burning spices,
coffee and citrus, lime kicking finished
with a deep Rum aftertaste.
The clue is there; Spiced Rum based spirit drink, okay.
So we are automatically assuming that the amounts of sugar
in this, yes it's a 40% ABV so legally it could be
classed as a Spiced Rum if you like
but I'm assuming the amount of sugar that's gone in here
and colorings it's gonna be a world apart from Kraken,
which I'm not a big fan of, let's be honest.
World's End Dark Spiced Rum, hands down my favourite
sort of darker Spiced Rum at the moment,
absolutely love that.
But let's get back onto Seadog.
£15 a bottle, that's the cool thing, £15.
It's not gonna break the bank at all.
I've got absolutely no idea who makes this for them,
whether it's made in the UK,
whether it's made elsewhere, no idea.
I cannot find out anything about this at all.
Alls I know is it kinda got released 2018 I think
it first came about in a limited edition guise
and then I can sort of see internet history
that it came back in 2019 and it's been around ever since
and as I say 40% ABV, £15 a bottle
so apart from that I've got no idea.
I'll just quickly read you through this again.
Premium Black Spiced Rum based spirit drink
with notes of sweet vanilla, warming spices,
coffee and citrus lime kick
finished with a deep Rum aftertaste.
So there we go, that's all we really know about it.
Right then, what does it smell like?
Let's crack it.
So smell.
(sniffing)
Sweet.
Wow, that smells sweet.
The big vanilla, actually that is.
(sniffing)
That is very reminiscent for me
of something like Old Jay that's very, very sweet
coming off the nose there.
(sniffing)
Sweet vanilla, definitely the lime comes through.
Not too much of the spice,
it's just big, bold vanilla, sweet vanilla notes
and a bit of citrus.
Right then, what does it taste like?
And actually I'm very pleasantly surprised by that.
Look, it is not up there with some of the Spiced Rums
that I've tasted.
It is not a beater in that sense
but remembering this is £15 a bottle,
so the kind of market it's going up against,
actually it is quite a decent Spiced Rum.
Sweetness scale?
I'm probably gonna give it a three and a half out of five.
It's not clawingly sickly, like stick to your teeth sweet
like Lambs for instance,
that really kinda does stick to your teeth
and Bombo's quite a sweet one as well.
So not kinda sweet like that.
The one thing that kind of does,
it's very sweet.
How can I explain it?
It's very sweet on the first taste
but the finish is kind of a dry alcohol.
The alcohol, the burn for the 40% does come through
but it's kind of balanced-ish
which makes this an all right Rum to drink neat
actually over ice.
You get the sweetness first,
balances out with a little bit of sorta dry alcohol,
that's actually not too bad and, again,
the interesting thing that it does,
because you've got the sweetness up top,
the very first sort of flavours you get are that sort of,
actually it's not as limey or citrussy as I was expecting
off the nose, it is kind of the vanilla.
Not getting too much warming spices overall,
they do come out because of the sweetness
but they're kind of very quickly,
here's a posh word, they very quickly dissipate.
We don't do posh words.
They very quickly disappear to allow for this sort
of alcohol comes through.
That's actually quite intriguing.
The one thing I'm just gonna do actually,
it's just here off camera.
We're gonna kind of compare it to the whole Kraken thing.
Let's, wow, well different colour.
(laughing)
Massively different colour, we need an ice cube.
Right.
(ice clinking)
Kraken.
Off the nose, you know,
not even in the same ball park is that sweetness.
Actually off the nose I think I do prefer that
because you do get that kind of sweetness coming through
but million miles apart, and then on the taste.
So I'm giving that about a three and a half, close,
it's gotta be three and a half out of five
on the sweetness scale.
That is a three, it's not a four purely because
the alcohol kind of dials it town on the aftertaste
whereas this is kind of a three,
it's not as vanilla forward at all,
not as citrus heavy at all.
It's actually, it's not one of my favourites
but it's an all right Spiced Rum so complete.
I'm not overly convinced you're gonna find
the comparison between the two.
I'm not overly convinced if you're a big Kraken fan
that that is a £15 substitute,
bearing in mind that's what?
£24-ish a bottle.
I'm not convinced that's a £7-8 saving for you,
let's put it like that.
I think if you're a big Kraken fan,
you're gonna stick to Kraken over that.
But this, I would just ignore the colour,
I'm purely going up against your Old Jays,
your Dead Man's Fingers, your RedLeg's,
that kind of Spiced Rum,
take colour out of the equation,
it is really not going up against Kraken at all.
But it's actually pretty, for 15 quid a bottle,
it's actually pretty decent.
Right then, how can you best enjoy this as a hi ball?
Well, because of that sweetness,
because of that kind of vanilla and lime
it just works with all your big favourites,
your Cokes, your Ginger Beers.
If that's how you drink your Spiced Rums
then honestly you are not gonna be disappointed.
As I say, don't think of this as a Kraken
kind of Spiced Rum, it's not.
Think of this comparison, if you're gonna compare it
to let's say DMF, Dead Man's Fingers,
Old Jay's, what else we got?
Lambs, oh it's better, for me it's better than Lambs easily.
It's that kind of ilk for you.
So, here we go.
I've got some cracking fun drinks for you
so ignore Coke, ignore Ginger Beer, they work,
they're a given but what I did actually like
was, I love playing about with these actually,
Rubicon, the Passion Fruit, these,
I do use a lot of their juice actually
on my cocktail masterclasses but I do have these
for fun Spiced Rum drinks.
So really, really love those two together.
I just thought that was really,
and it stands to reason because the whole Passion Fruit
and vanilla from the Pornstar martini,
you've got vanilla forward there and Passion Fruit.
I just thought that was a cracking hi ball,
really, really liked that, loads of fun.
And then just coming in slightly behind it
was the kind of Mango as well, Mango Rubicon.
Again, sparkling, not as thick and gloopy as the juices
but really, really like them.
So that was my first pick if you like,
first and second pick.
Brilliant drinks, love them.
And then my next drink where it came into it's own as well
was Old Jamaica's Pineapple Soda.
Again, fun, just spin that round sorry,
the labels are all back to front on the bottom here, look.
But just a fun, innocent drink.
Really, really lovely, as I say, £15 a bottle with that.
Don't get too pretentious with your mixers
or you cocktails or anything like that.
It's just that vanilla that comes forward,
the tiny bit of sort of citrussy lime in the back there
just works, really, really fun.
And then my last mixer, actually,
if you want your sweetness dialled back,
if that's enough sweetness for you
and you kind of like the mixers not to be overly sweet,
this as my other Pineapple Soda was amazing.
Better, better for me than Fentiman's tropical Soda.
Different drinks but just better.
I really, really like that combo together actually
'cause the sweetness of Rum kind of makes that
perfectly kind of balanced drink.
Really, really like that.
So I hope you enjoyed that.
There you guy, here's my picks.
That's it, £15 a bottle!
Go and check it out right now.
See you soon.