Updates: Foursquare and Renaissance releases

15 December 202315 December 2023 ~ Robbie ~ 2 Comments

I’ve updated the release history for Foursquare rums. It can be found on the References page. The highlights:

I’ve hidden the tabs for brands that I really don’t put effort into updating (nor do I want to) — RL Seale, Real McCoy, Doorlys, etc. There’s no point in me keeping those visible when they’re not complete or kept up to date and I don’t know anyone who’s really interested in tracking those.
The Private Releases tab has been reformatted. A section for Clifton Hall releases has been added, as well as one for what I’m calling “Limited Private Releases”, usually 1-3 bottle outturns that are intentionally very rare and designed to support a charitable cause. These have hand-drawn calligraphy labels.
The Velier tab has been reformatted and updated. Missing information (like casks) has been added, and a few releases that were missing age info have been updated. I also clarified that release quantities don’t include VSGB bottles, only the main release.

I’ve also updated the tracker for Renaissance Rums and added/updated labels that were published since the last update in early November. There’s also a very minor update to the SMWS bottle code sheet, I updated the distillery name for 158 (Yuza Distillery).

All of these are linked from the references page. If there are any updates or corrections I should make, please let me know!

New alcohol shipping options from K&L in California

8 December 20238 December 2023 ~ Robbie ~ Leave a comment

Many wine and spirits lovers outside California have wanted options for shopping and shipping from K&L Wine Merchants, a well-known package store chain in California with locations in the San Francisco Bay area and Los Angeles. K&L often has single cask selections or limited release imports that can only be found at their shops.

Unfortunately, K&L doesn’t offer many options for shipping outside the state of California thanks to the labyrinth of complicated alcohol shipping laws across American states. There are package forwarders in California who would receive K&L orders and re-forward them to international addresses but not to other US states. Fortunately things have now changed.

K&L is now partnering with RareStorage, a California company, to receive and forward orders within the US. RareStorage currently only works with K&L, but says they’re working on expanding to support other wineries and retailers.

Let’s see what this means for shoppers in the US and overseas.

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Upcoming US Rum Releases of Interest — December 2023

4 December 20234 December 2023 ~ Robbie ~ 2 Comments

Here’s a new list of upcoming rum releases for the US market compiled from TTB label certifications approved in November. These are only label approvals recorded at the US TTB, so none of these are likely to be available yet and it’s anyone’s guess when they might appear in stores.

This doesn’t include every rum label approval, I’ve tried to triage the approvals to the brands that people would recognize, while also including other labels that might be interesting and excluding spiced/flavored products and most cachacas.

The TTB approved 94 rum labels in total this month, 33 are covered here.