Nea Fane – Un Biet Român Pripășit în America / A Hapless Romanian Stuck in The US

This wonderful rum from Guatemala deserves a story, not a simple review. It is a story about how it found its way into my life, blended with my own, and in doing so, became our story.

Bucharest, spring of 2019.

I was drowning in sadness, melancholy, and homesickness. I was tired of pretending that everything is fine. A dear friend, a keen observer of human nature, realized something wasn’t right. She practically dragged me to visit a couple who were close friends of hers, hoping to shift my perspective and, as I do with my dogs, to redirect my thoughts.

The gentleman took one look at me wallowing in my bucket of melancholy and, with a conspiratorial whisper and secretive gestures, handed me a dark-colored potion.

“Drink this,” he said. “It helps.”

What he poured was the best rum I had ever tasted. I drank it in silence, savoring every drop. I must have looked a little less miserable afterward because I was promptly offered a second glass. Just as good, just as welcome.

I remember little of that spring in Bucharest, but I will never forget that rum, which arrived at exactly the right moment. I didn’t even know its name at first; I had to play detective to find it. And once I did… I was afraid to buy a bottle.

Sounds strange, doesn’t it? Let’s rewind a few years.

My father and I once visited my uncle and aunt in Germany. I don’t recall the exact year, only that it was autumn. The leaves were copper and crimson, and because it was Germany, they seemed to fall to the ground with military precision, right next to the trunk. That amused me immensely.

My uncle never simply served a drink; he turned the act of pouring into an event. I still remember how he once presented homemade sour cherry liqueur to a group of foreign businessmen during the communist years. The liqueur had supposedly come from nuns at a monastery in Moldova, smuggled to him by Ghiță, the company driver, hidden in a wooden crate beneath the backseat of a utility vehicle.

After they finished the first bottle, my uncle stealthily produced another. “Only for you,” he told them, secretively. “These are very hard to come by.” They drank that second bottle with religious reverence. They practically wanted to bow before it. But he stopped there. Had he produced a third bottle, they might have realized it wasn’t a monastery treasure after all, but a product of his basement and the centuries-old Romanian tradition of home distilling.

And, as everyone knows, a drink shared with people you love tastes infinitely better than the exact same drink consumed alone like a lonely lumberjack, so I remembered what I’d tasted in Aachen.

One was LINIE Aquavit, a Norwegian spirit with a thrilling story: the barrels spend months sailing around the world, crossing the Equator twice while aging in old sherry casks. By the time my uncle finished the tale, the bottle was empty, and we had traveled the seas with him.

Later, we headed south to Italy, and out came a frosted bottle of grappa, cold enough to look as though it had arrived from the Pope’s private wine cellar.  And again, there was the story. Again, the conversation. Again, the appreciation. Since my father wasn’t exactly a beginner in these matters, he added his own stories. We, the youngsters, listened in awe.

Truth be told, grappa is just pomace brandy. Supposedly, it’s wonderful for digestion. Given how much we drank, my digestion is likely still in excellent shape.

Fast forward to the present.

I arrive in Arizona with a backpack full of memories. I head to the giant liquor store, find the exact bottles we’d had in Germany, and present them to my beloved Irina: “Here, my dear. You have to try these.”

She takes one sip of the LINIE. “What on earth is this? It’s awful!”

That was the end of that. I almost found myself apologizing for offering her such nonsense. I never even dared let her try the grappa. I drank it by myself instead, rather reluctantly, like one of those lonely guys in a cabin deep in the mountains. It somehow wasn’t nearly as good. No companionship, no stories. Something was missing.

Given that, buying a bottle of Zacapa felt like a gamble. Still, nothing is too much for your child. For our “Little One’s” birthday, I bought him a bottle of Zacapa 23.
“Oh,” he said, “I haven’t liked rum for ages.” “For ages? You’re twenty-eight!”

Being very much his mother’s son, he shoved the bottle back into my arms without ceremony. Irina suggested we open it. I said no. Now she got offended, and solemnly declared that she’d never touch it, and walked away with great dignity, slamming the door.

That was in May. For months, I circled that bottle like a suspicious cat. It accompanied me on several trips, living in my favorite backpack like a marshal’s baton, always waiting. I was afraid to open it. What if I didn’t like it anymore? What if it ruined the memory?

Then came Labor Day weekend. A glorious long weekend, and we were at a spectacular lake at 6,500 feet with our friends, the Cs. The Zacapa sat in the bag, patiently waiting. It probably felt at home, having been aged at over 7,500 feet in the “House Above the Clouds (Quetzaltenango).”

We had a campfire, beer, and stories. I eventually mentioned the rum. Everyone looked at me, bewildered: “What are you waiting for? Open it!”

One taste became another. Glass after glass, story after story, and before we knew it, the bottle was empty. It tasted every bit as wonderful as it had in Romania.

As I sipped the rum, the motherland memories came flooding back. I sent a picture to my old lady friend to tell her how much I was enjoying it. Her reply came like a cold shower: “I have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re drunk, you’re fat, and you’ve gained all the weight back.”

Both statements were accurate. But what hurt most was that she’d forgotten the rum.

Two days ago, in December 2021, while shopping at a fancy store for the Zubrowka, the Polish vodka, for a friend, I spotted it again: Zacapa 23. I showed it to Irina. “Remember? This is what we drank at the lake. We loved it. You loved it.”

Irina looked at me and said, “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

She could have slapped me; it would have hurt less.

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From their website:

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Final thoughts:
did I like it? Oh, yes!
will I buy again? Hell, yeah!