Van Helsing's Curse

I really have no clue how I came this far without posting this oddity. Van Helsing's Curse was a side project of Twisted Sister's Dee Snider. Unfortunately, they only made a single album, Oculus Infernum, which was a concept album that Wikipedia summarizes as, "[Telling] the fictional story of a young boy, orphaned after an entity murders all the adults in his town. The child then wanting revenge comes upon one of the descendants of Van Helsing and teams with him to try and put an end to the entity". They used to do live performances of the album around Halloween, but have since quit due to a "lack of demand". I don't know about you, but I would absolutely love to see something like this.

Tubular Hell



Let Me Pray



As there's only one album, and it doesn't differ very much from the above examples, I'll stop there. I suppose this won't be for everyone, but then again when do I ever post something that is?

Why Is The Rum Always Gone? part 5

So, first thing first. You might notice a new button on the right. I have finally given in and created a Facebook page. I won't promise anything more than a cross posting of my blag, but hey, if you're one of *those people* that embrace the book of faces, then by all means start spreading my word across your unholy land.

Now, onto today's post. It's Saturday, and that means another rum-filled post! Today's rum: Blackheart spiced rum. I swear to you, contrary to what these reviews have been, I've never been a huge spiced rum fan. Alas, however, I'm still recovering from a bit of a financial ass kicking I received last summer, and spiced rum tends to be cheap. Combine that with not wanting to review something I don't currently have (As, trust me, those would be shit reviews.) and we're kinda stuck with spiced. With all that being said, I promise that I'll avoid the Captain. (Save Private Stock.) as no amount of coke will ever make that a respectable drink.

The very first thing that I should mention about this rum is that it's about $13 for a 750 mL and there's a $10 mail in rebate attached. So $3 for a bottle of 93 proof rum? I'm trying it. Period. End of story. (With rebate, that gives Blackheart a 10/5 on the Broke College Student Scale...If you can't find a bottle with a rebate, I'll give it 3.5. Maybe I'm just a bit skewed after finding out that something as cheap as Aristocrat is actually drinkable.)

As for the taste: There is some flavor (caramel apple?) that dominates all the other spices. Even when mixed, it's very prominent. When I looked up other Blackheart reviews online, this flavor, whatever it is, and the sweetness of the drink were the two largest focal points. Some people loved it, some...didn't. Since I brought up the sweetness, I might as well, talk about that next. It's definitely much sweeter than one would expect a 93 proof anything to be.When I say "sweet" I mean, "You can actually forgo the coke, if you want." That would turn many people off, but I dunno. I kinda see some potential with it as far as mixing goes. Maybe in some kind of hard cider? Dunno. (Oh, and with it being so sweet and high proof, the drunkability is going to be VERY subjective, so I'll skip that score.)