Rogue Hazelnut Spice Rum

You may recall back in August, I posted about Rogue's Dead Guy Whiskey, one of six of the spirits that they distill. To reiterate, Rogue is an excellent brewery, one of my favorites. Fortunately, most of the beers that they brew are easy to find in the Northeast and (as far as I know) most of the country. Their spirits, however, are not. In a trip I took to Arizona a couple of weeks ago, I couldn't help noticing that an impressively stocked store carried a few of the Rogue spirits.

Since I already tried the Dead Guy Whiskey, I really wanted to try one of their other unique liquors, their Hazelnut Spice Rum. Since it's rum, naturally the bottle sports an image of a pirate, more specifically Blackbeard. An interesting blurb on the bottle explains how Blackbeard, at well over 6 feet, used to weave gunpowder-laced wicks into his full beard and light them during battle to intimidate opponents (yeah, I'd say a menacing tall pirate with a beard on fire would do the trick).

Anyway, on to the taste. As with most liquor, I like to try new ones (especially flavorful ones such as this) without any mixers or frills, so I tried it on the rocks. If you like the smell and taste of hazelnuts, you'll love this rum. There's not much to it other than a great toasty aroma and a smooth sweet taste, due to the ingredients: 100% pure Hawaiian cane sugar, toasted Oregon hazelnuts, bitter orange peel, Madagascar bourbon vanilla bean, cinnamon and clove. Rogue's website does offer some drink recipes, a couple of which I'll have to try:

-The Hazel-Coffee: equal parts Hazelnut rum and Kahlua with a dash of bitters
-Fuzzy Nuts: 1 part Hazelnut rum with 1/2 parts Irish cream and Amaretto