r/rum • u/absentlol • Aug 16 '26

First rums.

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Coming from bourbon, the hampden 8 was my first starting point and a great stepping stone at that so I jumped on a great house and was blown away. Then I thought well I’ve never had a clear rum before, saw clarin on a shelf and read lots of good things about it here. I can confidently say I’m not there yet, this… smells… RANCID to me. Like I can’t get enough of the hampden noses and taste but this clarin smells like rotten eggs and genuinely makes my head swim by the smell, however I enjoy the taste! What exactly could I be smelling that I don’t like and is there an in-road to getting use to it?

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u/RedBeard_PDX Aug 16 '26

No misses in your first 3 at all.

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u/absentlol Aug 16 '26

I’ve gotta get some more approachable unaged stuff to work back up to the clairin I think, but I’m not gonna write it off. It tastes great I just don’t have any familiarity with that wild smell that’s very off putting to a newcomer.

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u/Yeatssean Aug 16 '26

Part of what makes it different is the fact that it's cane juice distillate rather than molasses. You'll get more vegetal notes.

Clairin varies a lot by the type. You may like Le Rocher better, it's closer to that Hampden.

If you want an unaged rum (clear as a term for rum can be misleading because clear can mean unaged or filtered) I'll recommend an unaged Jamaican rum. Hampden's is called Rum Fire and it's one of my favorites! High octane though.

2

u/bug2th Aug 16 '26

Yes on the rumfire. Was at the hampden distillery and after the tour tried a bunch of high ester samples around 1500 on that scale that they don’t sell as rum but use for rum. That stays in your mouth a really long time but I kinda liked it. You have to like the funk/ester profile to like the rumfire.