Matt Robold is a rum connoisseur and insufferable snob who enjoys subjecting the world to his views at RumDood.com. He sits on the Board of Directors of the Cocktails & Spirits Online Writers' Group, a collection of writers dedicated to helping the world drink better.

Matt lives in Southern California with his collection of rums and an abusive mint plant.

Brugal is the world's third largest producer of rum, ranking behind only Bacardi and Captain Morgan. In the Dominican Republic, if you're drinking rum, you're probably drinking rum from Brugal.

The Brugal family inadvertently started the movement for entrepreneurship in the Dominican Republic when Andrés Brugal Montaner settled in Puerto Plata on the northern coast of the island and started a small rum distillery in 1888. Today tourists travelling to Puerto Plata can tour the Brugal facilities there, where the family still ages, blends, and bottles their rum.

The large fire that broke out at around 18:00 at J. Wray & Nephews warehouse was first feared to have been fuelled by millions of dollars worth of rum, including some that have been ageing in barrels for more than 30 years.

The fire that was contained to the cooperage house housing only empty rum barrels is potentially expected to have caused damage worth hundreds of millions of dollars, which would not only affect the company but the country as well, according to the Industry Minister Karl Samuda.

Diplomático Rum Blanco is the latest addition to the Diplomático rum range, first introduced at the UK RumFest in 2008. It is a white rum, distilled 4 times in copper pot stills and aged for 6 years in white oak barrels before going through a five time carbon filtration to remove any trace of colour from the spirit.

Diplomático Rum Blanco comes in a simple yet refined, tall, thick bottomed bottle with pumpkin coloured labelling and text that advertise the rum as ”Ultra Premium Imported Rum" and "Ultra smooth and Slow Aged Rare Rums of the Caribbean."

The synthetic cork is protected by a copper coloured metal seal and in the centre of the bottle can be found a familiar stamp, seen on all Diplomático bottles, depicting Juancho Nieto Melendez.

So it has been almost a year since I wrote the first part of Decadence and Debauchery in Foggy London Town and now that the 2009 Rum Fest is almost here I thought now might be a good time to write about my experience of the 2008 Rum Fest and what to expect when you go there.

With two days behind touring museums, eating fine food and drinking many an exotic booze and cocktail it was now time for the main event we were all here for; The UK Rum Fest, Europe’s biggest rum festival hosted by Ian Burrell with hundreds of rums to try, rum master classes, seminars, cocktail competitions and more!

Matthew and I had been the last two men standing at the Portobello Star on the previous night and had agreed to meet again the next morning for a nice greasy breakfast before we'd venture towards the Rum Fest.

We found our way to a small café not a long distance from our hotels where Matthew had a full English complete with eggs, bacon, beans, mushrooms and tomatoes whereas I had a thick slice of lasagne with lots of cheese. I guess you could call it a lunch, in my case anyway.

The third and the oldest of the three rums, Ron Los Valientes 20 Años Añejo Reserva Especial carries the signature of the Cellar Master to indicate his devotion and pride of the product he has nurtured for so long in the cellars of Veracruz.

As far as I understand, Ron Los Valientes 15 Años Añejo Especial is made using the same methods as the 10 year old the only difference being the blend of rums that has been aged a tad longer in the White Oak casks.

Being pleased with the 10 year old Los Valientes I was quite eager to taste the older 15 year old Los Valientes rum and see what it has to offer, not to mention the 20 year old Los Valientes that I will review later.

The design of the bottle is exactly the same, apart from the different age statement and different colour of the seal. One other detail in the bottles I haven't mentioned is the map showing the coastline of eastern Mexico where Veracruz is situated.