Hattiers Egremont Premium Reserve Rum has won BEST RUM at the Gentleman's Journal Drinks Awards ‘25! 🥃🏆
To give their verdict on the select shortlist, The Gentleman's Journal assembled a crack team of tasters, headed by their wine editor Guy Woodward, whose recommendations appear regularly in these pages. As the former editor of Decanter magazine, his expertise is primarily in all things vinous, but taking up the editorship at Club Oenologique magazine saw him expand his repertoire to spirits coverage. Today he runs his own content creation agency, Grand Cru Creative.
Joining him were a roster of top talent from London’s bar and restaurant scene. Denise Elisei is head bartender at The Dorchester hotel’s Vesper Bar, where she oversees a cocktail list built on the foundations of the ‘olfactory pyramid’: the head (top notes); heart (middle notes); and base (end notes).
Dominic Hamdy is the founder of HAM Restaurants group, which comprises four London sites including Spitalfields wine bar Crispin and Bistro Freddie in Shoreditch.
They were joined by Max Venning, owner of the award-winning Three Sheets cocktail bar in Dalston, which this summer launched its second site in Soho. Venning also runs a bar and restaurant consultancy advising new businesses.
All the wines and spirits were served to the panel blind, which is to say not that the judges were blindfolded (this tends to get messy). Instead, the bottles were not visible to them and the liquids were poured into unmarked glasses so as to be tasted free of prejudice, and scored entirely on the merits of what was in the glass.
A huge thanks to Guy Woodward and his panel of drinks experts for crowning Egremont the winner from the blind tastings. Quality always shines through.
Guy Woodward: The Devon-based bottler imports rums from around the world, before blending them and bringing them down to bottling strength with soft Dartmoor water. The result, said Dom Hamdy, managing director of Bar Crispin and Bistro Freddie, is, “A very precise rum with a refreshing subtlety: complex on the nose, with a lighter, more restrained touch on the palate”.
Discover the other category winners HERE.
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