Rum is hot right now. Tiki drinks are making a comeback, a sipping rum is now a staple for cocktail bars in the know, and bartenders are increasingly using it as the new “it” liquor for cocktail bases. And honestly, after a couple Tiki parties we attended lately, we enthusiastically support this trend with a slightly slurred “hooray!”

Perhaps all this hoopla is why we are starting to see Rum migrating from the Caribbean and popping up domestically. New England (which was the epicenter of rum production for a time, believe it or not) is showing some growth, as well as Hawaii. But the most interesting one we found recently was a little distillery out of Colorado, called Montanya.

Montanya is nestled in the Colorado Rockies, just a little south of Telluride, in a town called Silverton. It seems an unlikely place for a rum distillery, but nevertheless, owners Karen and Brice Hoskin set up shop there in April 2008, and just a few weeks ago, we caught wind of their ambitious little project. When we contacted them, we were delighted to hear that they have a fella out here in the Seattle area that does indeed have the rums in his possession and agreed to do a little tasting for us.

Montanya has two rums, a “Platino” White and a “Oro” Dark. They are both made from sugar cane, aged in American Oak, and distilled with an Alembic Copper Pot still.

The Platino is coconut-husk charcoal filtered, and as you might expect, is light on the nose. It does maintain a bit of the coconut in the palate, with other hints of sweetness, mainly vanilla. While it’s not usual for a light rum to be aged in Oak, it certainly gives it a more complex flavor than most silver/white rums we have run across. It would lend itself well to mixing, and would make a better cocktail than your average white rum to be sure.

The Oro is unlike anything we have tried before. It’s fermented with champagne yeast, and aged in once-used Stranahan Whiskey Barrels (Stranahan is a Colorado Whiskey). We could taste traces of mocha and coffee, with a hint of brown sugar, and the rum finishes sweet with honey. It’s a unique flavor profile, one that at once fruity and rich, but also has a light color and medium body. This is a sipping rum to be sure, and while it’s not the dark, Island style that rum enthusiasts are used to, a glass of it goes down amazingly smooth.

So far, Montanya has won a slew of accolades and awards for their efforts, and the respect of rum connoisseur (and Ministry of Rum guru) Ed Hamilton. Washington is one of a handful of states that you can get both incarnations of Montanya, albeit by special order only. At $35 a bottle, a rum connoisseur won’t want to do without.

For more information, a slew of cool pictures, and more about how Karen and Brice fell in love with rum, check out www.montanyarum.com.

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