Dear friends, it is clear the bottle sells in this case. Pussy e-shops say it is morbid and hideous. I say it is original and certainly unforgettable. It does look a bit like some weird dried-out skull, right? This, my friends, is Tsantsa and Tsantsa is (according to Wikipedia):
The Shuar or Ashuar, Jíbaro in Spanish, are an ethnic minority of South-American Indians living in Ecuador and Perú, especially near the Marañón River. The Shuar are famous head-hunters. They do not keep the skull as trophies though but the prepared skin – tsantsa. Tsantsa is a result of skinning the head (face included), by slowly drying and shrinking it using warmed-up sand, ashes and herbs. A properly made tsantsa is about the size of a fist, still retaining all the facial features. Its mouth and eye-lids are sewn together using botanical yarn. A man who has killed his enemy, had the right to wear his tsantsa as an amulet on his chest. After a victorious battle, the Shuar danced a tsantsa dance, not unlike the scalp dance of the North-American Indians. It was due to tsantsas that the Shuar used to be considered canibals by the Caucasian population, which was not true.
A real tsantsa may look like this:
So the bottle that looks like a war trophy of the Amazonian Indians comes from Veracruz, Mexico, and we owe Deadhead (do not click the website, it is an example of visual masturbation) to a well-known name in the alcohol world – Kim Brandi. Kim is a woman whom you might know thanks to her other products – KAH Tequila bottle (a very similar bottle of Crystal Head vodka) and Apocalypto Tequila. If you look at the bottles, we know why Deadhead has the name and bottle it has 🙂
KAH Tequila – source of the image 
Apocalypto Requila – source of the image 
Crystal Head Vodka (for comparison) – source of the image
The rum is double-distilled from a mixture of sugar-cane juice and molasses. During the process, water from a 300-metre-deep well is used, located right under the distillery. Deadhead is aged for 6 years in oak barrels previously holding sherry and it does not have very positive reviews at Rum Ratings, despite numerous awards. I have to agree here, the more beautiful the bottle, the worse the rum – its bitterish taste did not really appeal to me.
You may smell cocoa, coffee or cinnamon and other spices. On the palate, there are notes of caramel, aniseed, clove, and vanilla. The slightly spicy, citrusy and bitterish taste lingers on your tongue for quite some time. What it lacks in taste, it adds in colour of gorgeous amber hue.
Thanks to its bottle, it makes a wonderful gift but only for those who don’t mind its bitter taste as I do. You may purchase the bottle for CZK 1226 in the Czech Republic.
