Forbidden Island's Kill Devil Rum Club

A while back I posted about my first visit to Forbidden Island Tiki Bar in Alameda. Near the end of that post I mentioned that I’d like to learn a bit more about this curious “rum” thing.

Forbidden Island to the rescue! If the rum menu was impressive when I first visited in November then it’s positively mind-blowing now. I have to believe that it’s going to become a mecca for rummies everywhere with over ninety types from which to choose, sourced from all over the world.

To help the burgeoning rum community Forbidden Island has started its Kill Devil Club. Sign up, try every rum on their list, get your name immortalized on a brass plaque mounted above the bar.

I joined on March 21st and already have ticked fifteen rums off my list. This is not as alcoholic a feat as it sounds since the majority of the rums were served in flights of four or five at a time and only a fraction of an ounce for each.

So, yeah, it’s an impressive menu and will give me plenty of opportunities to try a supreme assortment of rums, but thus far I’m not learning very much. The rum menu comes and aside from the country of origin there’s little to tell you what to expect when the drink arrives at the table. You might not be ordering completely blind but without research it’s pretty darn close.

When I visited Forbidden Island on Friday I asked for an extra copy of the Kill Devil list to take home with me. The goal is to do some brief research on each rum on the list, including the creation of a glossary of common rum terms. Thanks to the beauty of Google Docs I’ve made a spreadsheet which anyone can view online here{.broken_link}.

My hope is to add at least a couple of web notes a week, eventually working my way through the entire list. If I’m lucky then it might become a resource for other rummies on the web. If they’re lucky I won’t lose steam and forget all about this noble project.