On Sunday 5th November Hattiers was featured for the second time this year in the Best of British drinks segment on ITV's Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh.
Drinks expert, writer and keen advocate for women in whisky and spirits Becky Paskin served up some cracking Bonfire Night cocktails for guests Chris Tarrant, Anna Madeley and Rachel Shenton before moving on to some neat sippers, worthy of your hip flask, featuring Hattiers Resolute Navy Strength Rum.
Becky began the rum tasting with a little history lesson, telling the origin story of Navy Strength Rum and its links to gunpowder - perfect for Bonfire Night!
She described Resolute as having "rich tropical fruit notes, molasses and sticky toffee"... "It's a nice, big, unctuous rum. If you like to sip neat spirits then this one is for you".
"It's very rich - a real Bonfire Night tipple" Alan said, and when the picture was painted of a chilly night where a hip flask full of Resolute is passed around friends, he responded with "I'm there, but I'm not passing it around!"...we'll take that as a seal of approval!
Hattiers Resolute Navy Strength Rum
At Hattiers we hand pick the finest tropically aged rums from around the world and gently pair them with pure soft Dartmoor water to create outstanding rum blends that are fragrant, smooth, complex yet accessible and delicately balanced. We are proud to produce real, unadulterated rums that can be enjoyed by all, from those new to rum to the rum elite.
We never add sugar, spices or flavourings to alter the exquisite flavour gained from barrel ageing and we never add colourants or “caramel” (aka E150) to make the rum appear darker or more aged than it is.
'Resolute' - Admirably purposeful, determined and unwavering.
At 54.5% ABV Resolute is not for the faint hearted if sipping neat. Full bodied of rich toasted sugar and charred oak notes, Resolute is a firm favourite with rum enthusiasts and whisky lovers alike, lending itself perfectly to a rum old fashioned or simply decanted into a hip flask to keep the cold at bay during brisk winter walks.
Blend Detail:
8 Year Old - Barbados - Pot Still with Double Retort & Column Blend
5 Year Old - Australia - Pot Still with Double Retort & Column Blend
2 & 5 Year Old - Guyana - Pot Still & Column Blend
4 Year Old - Jamaica - Pot Still with Double Retort
History of Navy Rum
Rum has a long tradition with Britain’s Royal Navy, and with navies that grew out of it, including the Australian, New Zealand, Canadian and other commonwealth navies. The U.S. Navy also had a rum tradition, a practice it inherited from the Royal Navy, although this was phased out in the mid-19th century.
The original ration or “tot” was a half pint of rum per day. The rum would vary in strength, but generally averaged around 55% alcohol or 110 proof. The rum would be distributed around 4 bells during the forenoon watch—10:00 am in modern parlance. This ration was later watered down and served in two portions as there were concerns about the sailors' drunkenness amongst British sailors; one in the morning and one in late afternoon. A sensible move we'd say.
There are several theories on why the practice originated. In tropical climates, beer would often spoil and water become putrid. Rum, on the other hand, had the advantage of keeping indefinitely and took up less room onboard than the daily ration of a gallon of beer. It was also cheap to buy and was being produced in large quantities in the British West Indies as a byproduct of the booming sugar industry.
Rum had another advantage. It mixed well with the daily dose of lime juice that was doled out to British sailors to prevent scurvy and was safer to drink than the water on board. Although that practice did not start until the 18th century, well after the adoption of the daily rum ration, it provided an additional reason to continue the practice.
Navy rum was supposed to be 54.5% ABV (and still is for Navy Strength Classification). In order to demonstrate to the crew that the rum was not diluted (and therefore dilution of their daily pay), the purser would mix a small quantity of gunpowder with the rum and light it. If the gunpowder flashed, then the rum was overproof. If the gunpowder failed to ignite, then that meant it had been diluted. If the gunpowder burned with a steady blue
flame, then the rum was at the correct strength and was considered “at proof.” Hence the use of the term proof when describing the strength of alcoholic spirits. The final advantage of having rum at proof or overproof on board was that should the rum spill on to the gunpowder, that it would would still light and not spoil the ship's precious stores of gunpowder.