The Future Of Lamb's Is Not Entirely In The Dark
 We recently discovered that Lamb's had moved beyond producing only the (dark) Navy rum that's so widely known. Lamb's Spiced was for us a fantastic experience and during the article, we alluded to the new white rum that was just being released to market. RumFest 2009 was the staging ground for the UK preview of Lamb's White Rum and we had the opportunity to try a little. Well, it's taken a little while for me to 'extract a digit' as it were, but I'm pleased to get the opportunity to tell you a little more.
Again, my thanks go to Sue Beck, (the brand manager at Halewood International) for the generous offer of a sample bottle. It really does allow a chap to try a few different combinations and see how it fit's. I'm not giving the game away when I say it fit's very well thanks very much! A white rum is still something of a oddity for me. Strange, I know - but if I decided that I fancied a drink - it's almost always a golden rum that I'll go for. I never pick up a bottle of white rum with a view enjoying a tot neat and previous ramblings to this effect have been made (several time), so I'll not go over old ground again. The truth is that it's pretty much a generic mixer category. So with that in mind how is it? Well, the obvious sector contender and the one that everyone is aiming for is Bacardi. Lamb's is a stronger flavoured rum (in comparison), with none of the light citrus notes of Bacardi - I'm sure I end up with more of a toffee finish than I was expecting and that's reather cool. TheFloatingRumShack.com is famous for it's devotion to mojito's and it certainly works fine in that for us, but with all that lime, mint and sugar - I could probably say the same about lab alcohol. I'm a  fan of the simple, honest daiquiri and again it works well there - but of course, once again the flavours mask so much. So perhap's the only way to compare is to drink it in a way that it wasn't designed for - i.e.; neat!
A remarkable fact that I never tire of, is telling rum virgins about the vast range of flavours that abound in the world of rum. Take a pair of identical glasses, one with Lamb's White and one with Bacardi - very different flavours and a great way of proving a point!
I've tried looking Lamb's White Rum up on the web, with a view to finding a little more out and other than the odd snippet, there's not a lot out there. It's new for sure, but as of yet not even featured on the likes of The Whisky Exchange or The Drink Shop. The little bit of information I've been given indicates that we should be seeing it in Tesco's. The other off-trade outlet mentioned was Bargin Booze (a company I'd never heard of before). At the time of writing they have Lamb's White Rum at £12.99 a bottle (was £13.99) - click here to see for yourself, although the website is not that detailed. Rather more interestingly, the lovely Lamb's Spiced Rum is listed at the same price - which I can't help but feel is something of a bargin.
As the press release for the RumFest preview is a little light on info and there doesn't appear to be a dedicated website (like there is for the Navy and Spiced rums), I'm thinking that either the rum really is 'that' new, or if I was being a tad critical, perhaps the desire to have a white rum in the family actually outweighed the reasoning of what they are going to do with it once they had it. I'm going to take the optimistic view and say that it is there to expand the companies boundaries and get closer to the 'younger drinker' market, at which Lamb's Spiced Rum is obviously targeted. A good call I'd say.
In keeping with the rest of the Lamb's rum familiy, the White is a blend of Caribbean rums although that's all I can tell you! We can say we genuinely like this rum and we'll be keeping our eye's open for it next time we are in Tesco's to see if it's made it to the main stage yet.
Oh - one last snippet of info - the familiar hexagonal bottle is to stop the bottle from rolling away when at sea. Very practical on the ocean blue!
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