Every time I visit Hi-Time Wine Cellar nowadays, I buy myself a rum–have I written this already, the last time I wrote about a rum from the Costa Mesa playground of the boozehounds? Maybe. Anyhoo, this time around, I thought I bought a Javanese rum when I got Batavia Arrack van Oosten, whose beautiful emerald bottle I see in the finest OC establishments. But it turns out arrack is its own spirit, a sugarcane-derived drink spiked with red rice. Yum!
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I didn't find out that Batavia Arrack wasn't a rum until I started writing this DOTW, but now it makes sense. The drink is grassy, like a heavier cachaça, but with hints of citrus. Only the manliest of men can weather this neat or on the rocks, as it's funky–manly men like me. Everyone else can do like the hipsters and enjoy it in punch, a cocktail where Batavia Arrack supposedly dominated for centuries. Nevertheless, a great purchase, cheap–and further proof sugarcane is the most underrated weed of them all…
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