Dark Rum Tasting at Arizona's Desert Diamond Distillery

[Joshua Noble]

Last weekend, we found a unique something to celebrate my wife’s birthday - a tasting of the opening of the first aged dark rum barrel at Desert Diamond Distillery, a little run factory off of Route 66 near Kingman.
Of course, this was not an ordinary stand around the counter tasting, but an event catered in by a local Italian chef and limited seating - very limited! So if you think this is for you, wait until next year when they have another set of pristine, aged barrels. The drink, aged in former Jack Daniels barrels, had the characteristic bourbon oaky flavors with unmistakable molasses finish of a true rum.
But if you don’t mind the ordinary tasting at a bar with history, one salvaged from a bar in Las Vegas known to have bestowed non other than the Rat Pack, then drop by any day and sit back to sip in a tasting of their Agave Rum or the Gold Miner Dark Rum, a Platinum at the 2011 SIP (International Spirits Competition Awards, www.sipawards.com.
Desert Diamond Distillery offers tastings and tours six days a week: www.desertdiamonddistillery.com.

Photo: Father & Son owners, Peter and John Patt (right to left).

[David Lawrence]

Rum straight up it's an under-rated drink. I want to visit that distillery.