Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/687399
FOLLOWING HISTORY WITH THE REAL MCCOY The idiom "real McCoy" actually stems from a Prohibition rumrunner who only bootlegged the best rum into the dry United States. His rums were a dry style with no added sweeteners, and the speakeasies loved them. That rumrunner, Bill McCoy, inspired filmmaker Bailey Pryor to create the PBS film The Real McCoy. Pryor became so obsessed with McCoy that he founded the Real McCoy Spirits Corporation and sought to recreate the rum the Real McCoy illegally imported into the United States. At the National Archives, he discovered McCoy was working with a Barbados distillery. "It made sense to follow in McCoy's footsteps," Pryor says. And so Pryor has decided to work with rum's most-polarizing Master Distiller, Richard Seale, who demands others disclose their sugar content, to create some of the greatest rums on the market. Distilled and bottled at the Barbados Foursquare Distillery, The Real McCoy portfolio is as close as you'll find to McCoy's 1920s rum stocks, and it begins with a gorgeous Real McCoy 3 Year Old Rum layered in roasted nuts, floral, spice and hints of fruit, with a very subtle vanilla. Then there's the Real McCoy 5 Year Old, a worthy taster rich with toffee, cinnamon, peach, caramel and pineapple. But the star of this crop is the Real McCoy 12 Year Old, expressing everything there is right in the rum world: a beautiful nose of fruit, rose petals, hints of vanilla and caramel. The American oak really expresses itself in the palate with layer upon layer of caramel, maple syrup and hints of pepper and Chinese allspice. Of course, Pryor knows what he has: "Nice balance and robust aromas." Pryor hopes he can change the contemporary conversation about rums. "You have people in rum talking light and dark. Why does anybody care about how much food coloring is in spirit? We should be speaking aged versus unaged and dry versus sweet style," Pryor says. "I'm sticking to my guns." The Real Bill McCoy would be proud. REAL MCCOY SPIRTS CORP. june 2016 / the tasting panel / 1 13