The Kraken Reviewed

For my 30th birthday, my awesome fiancee got me the Kraken! I wrote about this great-looking rum back on the Jan. 14th, and today was my first chance to try a bit of it.

First thing, the appearance. It looks ominously dark on the official website, and sure enough in real life Kraken is the darkest rum I’ve ever seen. It’s darker than Capt. Morgan Private Stock, and has the same dark, oxblood character as Capt. Morgan Tattoo. The bottle design is a kick and the label looks incredible. It really calls out to the drinker.

After opening the bottle I took a whiff of the substance inside. Kraken is sweet, with a caramel distinction, and had no obvious alcohol characteristics in its odor. Everything about it so far was inviting. I took my trusty, empty Mason jar (We like to drink out of Masons in our household), and poured it straight. The flavor was very smooth, and I wanted a comparison, so previous to having Kraken I took a sip of Pyrat and a drink of Sailor Jerry. Pyrat and Kraken are so different you’d be hard pressed to think you were drinking rum each time. Pyrat burns, has a strong odor and light color, with a slightly higher proof than Kraken. Kraken is very laid back, sweet, the caramel aspect is very strong, and there is a tinge of smokiness. It tastes as dark as it looks, and you could sip it straight all night with no burn, no after taste, and enjoy a hard liquor with no chaser all night. Compared to Jerry, which has some burn and stoutness to its flavor, but leans more to the sweet side than Pyrat, Kraken had more subtlety and was much darker.

As for mixing, while Pyrat mixes great in spite of its strong taste, Kraken (whose color was as dark as my cola, if that paints a picture) actually enhanced the flavor of my soda. Jerry affects the soda so you always know its there. Capt. Morgan tends to lend a spiciness and sweetness to cola, while Kraken makes it an altogether tasty drink, sweeter but richer. I could detect the caramelly smokiness with each sip, and I just wanted more each time a drop went down.

Overall the Kraken is a great rum, and I am very happy to have received it as a gift. Top notch!

 

The Layout Sucks.

A while back, my fiance’ had this great idea. I should write about beer. I like writing, and I like beer. Ergo, write about beer. Beer is pretty freakin’ important to me. It’s not that I’m a drunk. It’s really about the object itself, the packaging, the commercials, the brewing process and the fact that like many things we just look at as ordinary, beer has been there with us throughout time. Kinkasa was the Sumerian goddess of beer. St. Arnold of Soisson is the patron saint of brewing. Dionysus was the god of wine, which sure isn’t beer, but look at the threads. We value fermented beverages so much we actually worshiped the process like it was given to us by the gods.

At this point there’s only a limited amount about beer I know. But I plan to use this as my traveler’s journal as I set to learn. I want to know all about beer. I want to know how it’s made, where it’s made, where it used to be made, and where you can find the best beer on the planet, especially if you can find it right down the road. I live in Omaha, Nebraska. It’s a small city, but I sense there’s a vibe out there. Omahans like to drink. The town has a lot of bars. There’s more coming, and there are microbrews too. I’m using Omaha as my jumping off point to overturn the stones and find the little hovels where you can find great beer, sometimes imported, sometimes from the corporate brewers, and other times brewed in the next town or next block from your house.

Beer’s not all I want to discuss though. There’s cider. It’s the lost American beverage. Cider used to be everywhere before Prohibition. It needs to come back. Cider can bring together those who love to drink, but don’t like beer. It can bring people out of the woods of hard lemonades and Smirnov ices into quality, good-tasting beverages. I see the potential in cider. It’s made from apples, and sometimes pears. It’s like drinking apple pie! That’s just pure America right there! Johnny Appleseed coming up to you with a cold, frosty glass! It’s beautiful.

Then there’s the other things I love, like rum. What an underrated drink. Another beverage with a fascinating history. Everyone loves the nautical/pirate theme of rum. Captain Morgan, Sailor Jerry, Cruzan, the Kraken – spiced rums to make you want to raid a village and a few bonny lasses along the way. Great stuff, mixes well and you can drink it straight too. I’ll talk about rum and one of the better, vastly overlooked drink mixers out there – the Dark and Stormy. And of course I’ll try to throw in some good Navy and pirate lore.

Last there’s one thing that is basically at fault for introducing me to alcohol in the first place, and with it I think good times and good drinks are possible. It’s the soundtrack of my life: rock and roll. I’m talking the real deal: loud guitars, Marshall and Hiwatt stacks, double-kick drum sets, rumbling Fender Precision basses, and flamboyant singing. The minute I hear Phil Lynott’s voice, I want to open up a bottle, call my friends and head down to the nearest tavern. I’m going to talk up the rockers I feel have been overlooked. Everyone knows Eric Clapton, but not enough people know about Rory Gallagher. And I don’t think enough attention’s been paid to the work of the Reverend Horton Heat, Brian Setzer, or the whole rockabilly/psychobilly underground. Rock and roll is about shaking your ass, and these modern day, mainstream bands don’t know what that’s about. So I’m going to shine a light on the devil’s music.

It’s going to be a great journey. I hope you come with me. Now I just got to get a decent layout for this thing.