Prichard’s Distillery
Prichard’s Crystal Rum is distilled in Tennessee, USA, by Phil Prichard using Grade A Louisiana fancy molasses. It’s distilled 5 times in pot stills, leaving a very clean, very clear rum. It just recently won a Gold Medal at the 2007 Cane Spirits Competition, and also won Best Of Category for white rums at the same event. It was one of Edward Hamilton’s Rums Of The Month on his Ministry of Rum website. It got a very good review over at the Spirits Review web site.

I kept running into folks mentioning this rum all over the Internet, and I had to wonder if a white rum could be that good. I had to find out, so I found a bottle and brought it home and will finally crack it tonight.

The Bottle
From the bottle:
A crisp, clean rum to be enjoyed chilled, straight up, or on the rocks. The blackstrap bitterness often associated with many rums is totally absent, making Prichard’s Crystal Rum the perfect mixer for your favorite rum cocktails.

Initial Tastes
The rum is certainly crystal clear, and swirling reveals some legs that surprise me for a white rum. The initial smell is heavy on alcohol and something mildly fruity and much more pleasant, but something I could not place exactly. A sip neat, at room-temperature, is a pure taste, quite smooth, with a very mild burn that lasts a short time. A second sip brings more mild tastes around. It’s not too sweet, and very smooth – very very smooth for a white, unaged rum. Yes, the smoothness is rather astounding, but I’m waiting for some tastes that I can identify. They’re so mild they just hint at fruits of some kind.

I rinsed my mouth with some spring water, and gave it a couple minutes just sitting in the glass. The final sip definitely has more taste, is a bit sweeter, and simply tastes like a very good rum. And certainly smooth.

Icey Cubes
Time for some on the rocks…

OK, this doesn’t taste like much at all. It’s almost like drinking vodka – well, very very good vodka, that’s smooth and sweet and has some fruit in the background. So I guess it’s not much like vodka in those respects, but the mild tastes do remind me of vodka’s (usual) lack of taste.

Have I been drinking too many aged sipping rums for me to appreciate this? Well I certainly appreciate the smoothness and lack of burn. I’ve had many older rums that weren’t this smooth. I’m almost through the glass on the rocks and I’m starting to wonder if the rum has evaporated and the ice cubes are melting faster than usual. Really, the Crystal has almost completely disappeared and it seems like I’m drinking water.

Ginger & Lime
Time for some lime and ginger ale. I wonder if I’m going to know that this simple cocktail has any liquor in it? One minute, please…

Two cubes, almost an ounce of Prichard’s Crystal, a spritz of fresh lime, two ounces of Schweppes and… it’s gone. Disappeared. I’m drinking ginger ale with a touch of lime. Seriously, I do not taste any rum, no alcohol, just ginger ale and lime.

Summary
In the end, this stuff is unbelievable in ways, and not worth the time in other ways. It’s very smooth, unbelievably smooth for a unaged white rum. It’s sippable straight up – an unaged white! On the rocks it almost disappears and seems like water. The work and skill that went into making this stuff that smooth is incredible.

But there’s simply not enough taste. I guess that I want to taste the rum when I drink rum.

So I can’t say that it’s worth the $26 that I paid for it, but it’s not going to go down the drain either. I will put this bottle to very good use. I will astound friends with the smoothness. I will make drinks for people who don’t like alcohol. (And it will be much better than vodka at this task.) I will make drinks for people who don’t like rum. I may even pull a high school trick of spiking the punch – and nobody will ever know.

Overall it’s an extremely high quality rum, but simply does not have the taste to make it worthwhile to me. I’m kinda bummed about that.

Prichard’s Distillery: http://www.prichardsdistillery.com/