The Christmas before last, we got lots of lovely presents from family; vouchers for restaurants, cinema tickets and experience days. But of course since we were forced into lockdown in mid March 2020, we never got able to use them (they’re all still being honoured to date so fingers crossed we get to use them eventually). But it meant for Christmas 2020, people needed to start getting a bit more creative, because no one was going anywhere for quite some time. Thankfully, we have very generous relatives, and Dave’s sister got us what turned out to be a perfect present; rum tasting in your own home with Matugga Rum.
Using the finest ingredients from the easterly region of Africa, Matugga rum artisan spirits are carefully crafted in Scotland, of all places, through small-batch copper pot distillation. Their proud heritage, combined with playful innovation, captures really unique flavours. And a tasting set is the perfect introduction to their range.
Jo sent us the set through the post and a few days later emailed us the instructions to join the live tasting over Zoom. The set comes with everything you need for a successful afternoon getting drunk tasting rum including so cute little tasting glasses, 6 miniature rums, various (full sized) mixers and even a little pack of chocolates which go with a couple of the rums.
I mean, I’ll be honest, in the last year or so, all our lives have moved onto Zoom and MS Teams so the prospect of being online again inbetween Christmas and New Year when it was supposed to be our break from work wasn’t ideal but it’s a completely different kettle of fish when you’re with like minded people enjoying sipping on quality spirts on a cold Monday afternoon! Jacine and Paul are brilliant hosts, really laid back and easy to follow along. They run through the box in order, giving you a little bit of history behind each of the rums and advice on what best to pair them with. They also give options as to how best to try them neat, if that’s your bag and had a guest mixologist to talk about how to make the best cocktails.
The mixture of Matugga rums and their sister company Liv rum, had our house divided. I really enjoyed the classic white rums, paired with good quality cola, or even the cream soda they sent which was a surprise to me as I’m not really a fan of cream soda. The fact that my favourite was probably the 57.5% Navy Strength white rum will come as a shock to nobody. Dave preferred the Liv spiced rum, which has a real smokey, whiskey flavour to it. We liked it so much in fact, that we’ve had two full bottles of it delivered since!
Dave wasn’t a massive fan of the chocolates but I could really see how they complimented some of the darker rums well, kind of like how a really deep red wine tastes amazing with dark chocolate, so that, along with the tasting glass, was a nice touch.
I became a bit of a fan of the Liv Raspberry and Hibiscus, which we’ve also had a second bottle of since the tasting, it’s much lighter so really nice as an aperitif (if you were taking a vacation from gin perhaps) as a night cap or even a tiny dash in a glass of prosecco tastes pretty good – so versatile!
Since the world is opening up now, I’m confident that the Matugga distillery will be able to welcome visitors through their doors once more for tours in person, however, I kind of hope they continue their online tastings too (the did a second one for mothers day which was another big success!) for anyone perhaps unable to make the journey up to Scotland.
