aka – The Platinum Edition
By Francine Cohen

This installment of the “Don’t Miss” column eschews our normal guidelines of presenting you with items you can enjoy and doing so in a way that’s informative for you, and not all about us. This time around though, it is kind of about us. And you too, of course. Assuming you have a spare $25,000 sitting around waiting for the right bottle of rum to come on the market.

Nope, not a typo. That’s $25K for a decanter of delicious rum. To quote what we discovered when opening the elegant packaging in which this precious perfume vial sized sample arrived (our sample size is worth just a mere $200)- this is the world’s most expensive commercial release rum…Legacy by Angostura (www.angostura.com).

Oh the agony that accompanied its arrival! We knew it had to be good; a company with the reputation of Angostura’s doesn’t just throw any old rum in a bottle. And certainly not this 500ml bottle; not when it’s actually an elegant keepsake decanter made by jewelers to the Prince of Wales, Asprey of London (www.asprey.com). And DEFINITELY not when the exclusive run of 20 handcrafted decanters is filled them with rum that the brand describes as “the crowning achievement of almost 200 years of tradition by the world’s most awarded rum range…”

So why the agony? Well, there was so much pressure. On us, not the rum. We had utter faith in the rum and it delivered (in an exquisite lightly warmed rum and Trinidad & Tobago sunshine beating down on us sort of way that elegantly carried through an initial chocolate and coffee note and ended in a few moments of lingering soft heat on our lips and tongue). The pressure was just how would we enjoy this? It had arrived in the afternoon, but we didn’t have the clear head with which to enjoy it and were running out soon anyway, and then there was the next morning as an option, but even with a rum as good as this was reputed to be, were we really ready to start sampling rum at 8:00 AM? And were we even worthy? This couldn’t be like the time we went for drinks with a cognac rep and he wouldn’t even order a 1 oz. pour because it was expensive; we were definitely worthy because they’d sent us the samples. So, it was just a matter of time before we enjoyed that sip.

Gosh, we wish we hadn’t waited that long because this was really special and we could have experienced it sooner. On the other hand, we would have finished it sooner too. And just been left with the memory of this high performance rum. Legacy kind of reminds us of the joys of driving a brand new Mercedes SLK 55; it gets the job done as does every other car/or rum, but you’ve never seen it executed this well before.

We’ve got a little left. We’ll be holding onto it and maybe sharing it with our nearest and dearest. If they are good. They’re definitely worthy. And so are you. Now, about finding that $25,000…