MANILA, Philippines - On Thursday night the 14th a fire broke out at Tanduay Rhum Distillers affecting two warehouses used to store alcohol in Cabuyao in the Laguna province.

Although the residents in the vicinity of the plant were away from the fire, they still expressed concern the fire might have spread, some of them evacuating their homes and some left afraid and unable to sleep because of the fire.

Some reports say one plant worker and three volunteer firefighters were injured in the fire, the plant worker suffering third-degree burns.

He has since been moved to the St. James Hospital and is in a stable condition according to Tanduay Distillers.

Ron Matusalem has introduced new top shelf rums to the U.S. and European markets to answer the growing demands of the consumers who have targeted the high end market of rums.

The company's rum range previously consisted of the Matusalem Platino, Clasico, Matusalem Solera 7, Matusalem Clasico 10 and their current top shelf offering available globally, Gran Reserva Solera 15.

The new additions to the Matusalem rum range are Ron Matusalem Gran Reserva 18, which is currently only available in the U.S. market and Ron Matusalem Gran Reserva 23, which is available in select European markets in Spain, Italy, Sweden, Czech Republic, France, Netherlands and Austria.

The winners of the first ever Golden Rum Barrel Awards were finally announced at the dinner that took place on Saturday evening on the 16th of October with some brands grabbing double awards in different categories.

The competition took place at an undisclosed location a couple of days prior the worlds biggest Rum Festival with some pretty exclusive rums available for tasting such as Appleton 30 Year Old and Black Tot Last Consignment.

The tasting panel consisted of several International Rum Experts, each who had previously nominated their top picks for the categories. These were then compiled and narrowed down to the top 5 rums in each category.

Maui Reserve Gold Rum is the last of the four Maui rums and it has been aged for over a year in American Oak Casks (Jim Beam) as it says on the black label in gold lettering.

There is also a smaller label near the bottom of the bottle that has hand written cask and bottle numbers and the signature of the Master Distiller and this is something I always appreciate to see in any spirits bottles.

Furthermore, I have been fortunate enough to have a bottle of rum drawn from Cask Number One, which makes it quite a collectors item indeed.

Article courtesy of Pavol Kažimir of www.dominicanrums.com

Recently, a document from Oliver & Oliver got into my hands. It contains some interesting company information and I am looking forward to share this knowledge with you.

Thanks to Orlando, Maria and Kierstin for translation and correction help. Starting with history.

Enjoy.

I first tried Maui Dark rum at the UK RumFest 2008 at a tasting seminar by Paul Artrip and as I recall it had a plethora of rich aromas and flavours that I immediately wanted to experience again.

I even managed to grab a bottle of the stuff for later tasting, cheers Paul!

This particular bottle spent a lot of time on the shelf before I decided to crack it open for this review.

Needless to say I was eager to re-experience my initial impressions of the rum but often the second experience will not be quite the same, especially after such a long time having not tasted it.

Article courtesy of Pavol Kažimir, www.dominicanrums.com

Everything started when i discovered the Vizcaya rum about a month ago.

I contacted the company right away and asked if there is a possibility of visiting their rum facility. Nancy de Blanck, the sales and export manager of the company without any hesitation agreed to my proposal. 10 emails, 2 phone calls and two weeks later I was there...

I decided to go there with Ramon the bartender from Hilton bar "Sol y sombra" who has a good knowledge about spirits, Kierstin our official DRA group photographer (good job) and Maria the beginning rum enthusiast.

Upon our arrival we were greeted by Ivette de Blanck, the head of the factory. She kindly took us to our first stop during this tour. The aging facility.