...You can trust, thankfully, that when I write about something in, say, April, and you receive that write-up in The Rosengarten Report in May, the judgement is still valid. But that ain't necessarily so when you re-read a Rosengarten Report note from last May, or the May before that, or the May before that. Some of the companies I've recommended have gone out of business. Some of the products I've recommended are no longer available. Some of the products I've recommended have changed for the worse. On the bright side . . . some of the products I've recommended have changed for the better . . . and some of them now have scrumptious sister products that you should know about!
So here's what I did. I dredged up all my old notes, re-kindled all my old memories, laid out all my old Rosengarten Reports, and came up with about a hundred highly lauded products - which we proceeded to reorder all over again. What an array! Not only was I struck by the quality - but also by the geographical diversity, with purveors from all over the American map participating.
We asked each purveor if there were any differences between the product we were sent before and the product we were sent on this go-round. We also asked each producer to send us any related products that I might not have tasted before. Then, I got to work - if, in this incredible prize round, that's what you call it. Oh, man - imagine night after night of the country's very best products, with my only urgency to identify whether each one was better or worse than what I tasted before! When the tasting bash was over (it took a few weeks), I was able to identify 25 products that, without any doubt in my mind, make up the elite group of The Rosengarten Report's Greatest Ever. I'll now let them speak for themselves - except for encouraging you, if you've found my taste to be reliable before, to get as many of these damned things on your table as you can, and as quickly as possible. . . .
THE INITIAL CONTEXT: Not only was this a "Product I'm Lovin' Right Now" in the June 7, 2004 Rosengarten Report - but many, many readers have told me how much they're lovin' it too, and how often they re-order this thing. One professional foodie in New York recently informed me that she's up to 15 rum cakes!
THE INITIAL WRITE-UP:This story begins with rum - as any rum cake story should! In 1984, two employees of Cayman Airways got into the rum business on the side. Three years later, with extra rum on their hands, Robert and Carlene Hamaty started baking rum cakes at home--leading, later still, to the establishment in 1990 of a commercial bakery, then a huge headquarters in the Cayman Islands, then other bakeries in Jamaica and Barbados, then the production of comestibles other than rum and cake, and, eventually, 80 employees.
Today, Tortuga Caribbean Rum Cakes are known and appreciated around the world--though they didn't enter my world until just last month. Oh, have I been missing out! I love cakes that ship well, that remain fresh weeks after baking. Wow! That is the case here, big-time; I couldn't believe how well these moist, airy things are preserved--and that's without any preservatives whatsoever, other than the ultimate preservative, five-year-old, oak-barrel-aged, Tortuga Gold Rum (try some on yourself!). The original cake, made with walnuts, is very, very good. Most of the flavored ones (chocolate, coconut, banana, Key Lime, and pineapple) didn't completely float my boat, because the flavors verged on the artificial-tasting (I must say that my kids loved 'em!) However, the grand winner at my tasting--which is so adult in character that my kids did not love it - was the Tortuga Caribbean Rum Cake, Blue Mountain Coffee.
The name leads you to expect a big Jamaican coffee taste, and there is some--but this nutmeg-colored cake's much richer in a wild m�lange of gingerbread, molasses and rum flavors. There is an intense, bitter edge to it, especially if you taste the literal edge that seeps about 1/2" down into the cake. This is profound stuff!--a killer dessert with a scoop of ice cream on top. Like all of the 33-ounce cakes, the Blue Mountain Cake is about 8" across and 3" high, a perfect size for 12-16 healthy slices. By the way, this is the only cake in the line that's not available in a 16-ounce size; the rest are, but you must buy a minimum of nine little ones to get any.
I couldn't finish my big Blue Mountain beauty, so it stayed on my countertop in a sealed plastic bag for about a week, until various visitors made it disappear--and it remained just as moist and fresh until the last crumb was ingested!
THE 2005 UPDATE: Wonderful as ever, remarkably consisitent - with that bitter kick in the finish, this time, reminding me of a tannic hit in a fine glass of red wine.
