Category Archives: Jamaica

Worthy Park Quatre Vins 2013 (52%, OB, Cask Selection Series #8, Ex-Bourbon 4 years & Ex-Monbazillac, Ex-Sauternes, Ex-Moscatel & Ex-Jurançon 2 years, 1.318 bottles, Jamaica)

As we saw in the previous review, Worthy Park, as it is now, is a relatively new distillery, with the first distillate running off the still in 2007. As we all know, new distilleries sell a lot of young stuff, so there are a lot of rather young independent bottlings to be found, as well as a lot of the releases of the distillery itself are quite young, like most of these Cask Selection Series. By now, there is our Single Estate Reserve as well as a few 10yo’s (again finishes like the Madeira and the Port, both bottled @ 45% ABV.) and a 12yo bottled @ 56% ABV. So, since the distillery isn’t operational for all that long, it simply doesn’t have older stuff to release. A new distillery has to reach a lot of people to get some of the invested money back quickly to survive, so a distillery like this won’t be going for an extreme and funky style (yet). Non of the Worthy Parks I have tried until now, came across as a high ester Rum in taste (and nose). So for a Jamaican Rum, Worthy Park isn’t about all that super high ester stuff, like we saw with Hampden (or Long Pond).

By the way, Monbazillac, Sauternes, Moscatel & Jurançon are all sweet White Wines. Moscatel is fortified and Jurançon exists also in a dry version as well but then it is called Jurançon-Sec. However, I don’t think they used the dry variant here, since the rest is Sweet, but you can never be sure now can you. Since the previous review and the one below are from the Cask Selection Series, here is a list of the eight releases I know of:

Worthy Park 2012 Marsala Cask Selection Series #1 for La Maison Du Whisky, France, 60%, 319 bottles, 2017
Worthy Park 2012 Oloroso Cask Selection Series #2, 59%, 428 bottles, 2017
Worthy Park 2013 Sherry Cask Selection Series #3, 57%, 1.148 bottles, 2018
Worthy Park 2013 Madeira Cask Selection Series #4, 58%, 677 bottles, 2018
Worthy Park 2008 Port Cask Selection Series #5, 56%, 585 bottles, 2018
Worthy Park 2013 Virgin Cask Selection Series #6 for The Nectar, Belgium, 55% 342 bottles 2019?
Worthy Park 2013 Oloroso Cask Selection Series #7, 55%, 1.612 bottles, 2019
Worthy Park 2013 Quatre Vins Cask Selection Series #8, 52%, 1.318 bottles, 2019

Color: Orange brown.

Nose: This one starts with a nice funky caramel, like Jamaican funk toffee (if it exists). Clay, fatty and creamy. Honey, nutty, unlit tobacco, slightly burnt toast and warm plastic or polyester even. Organic and slightly grassy. Paint with a hint of solvents and vinegar made from Wine. Chocolate Rum beans. Spicy and obviously a bit winey yet also meaty. Gravy, dry and dusty. Nice fresh oak, in part a bit like plywood. Hints of Alsatian Gewürztraminer, but also the flinty bit of a Pouilly Fumé. Both wines, strangely enough, not one of the Quatre Vins. A fast flowing gutter in the rain. What? Yeah, well, the Wines give this Rum a bit of a combined note that is hard to put into words. Red fruit candy without the sweetness. Dusty, as well as some mocha and vanilla powder. Do you remember the smell of a bowl that had vanilla ice-cream in it a few hours ago? So, from this big funky start it first turns fruity and next, more dry and spicy. A lot of the complex initial smells wear off a bit. Stock cube, with hints of toasted oak and licorice. The development is not all that dissimilar to the previously reviewed Oloroso version. No doubt about it, this is a very good quality Rum, yet again, lacking a bit of the Jamaican funk, I’ve come to expect from a Jamaican Rum. It is almost closer to, yet another, rather new, high quality Rum that is Foursquare from Barbados, than to its Jamaican brother from another mother, Hampden. Traits I’m actually looking for in a Jamaican Rum. When you have a few open bottles of Rum around, like me, sometimes you feel like having a nice Rhum Agricole from Martinique, Guadeloupe, or Reunion. On other occasions, Jamaican Funk or a nice Demerara is the way to go. Worthy Park is very good Rum, but it isn’t old skool Jamaican in style. Jamaican funk without the funk is like chicken without the jerk, but I may have mentioned something like this as well about the Oloroso bottling. So sometimes when I want to go Jamaican, I tend to go for something like Hampden or Long Pond, more outspoken and yes, sometimes hit or miss, like the Hampden from Cadenhead I just reviewed. That one is just strange (in a good way), but therefore not for everybody/anyone. Apart from the nose not being quintessentially Jamaican, it definitely is a rather good nose though, lots happening and very fine. I have to say the Wines do lift this nose beyond the nose of the Oloroso version, the Quatre Vins smells rather exciting, and in comparison, the Oloroso can smell young and unfinished.

Taste: Big, fatty and sweet at first, yet quickly (in a millisecond or so) turning dry, spicy and winey. Although more of the Red Wine kind, than Sweet Whites (because of the sour notes). Herbal, medium bitter, green and somewhat hot. Flinty and with a slightly burnt edge to it. Licorice upfront as well as some bicycle inner tube rubber seems to be associated with it. Warming. Maybe slightly Jamaican in the beginning, but not really actually during the rest of the experience. As I said, short lived. Wax and almonds. All those different casks got very busy, but here in a somewhat disharmonious way. For me, it worked a lot better in the nose. Just like the Oloroso version, it thus starts big, funky and fatty, and it turns more dry, austere, herbal and spicy, rather quickly, which might seem odd. People tend to believe Rum is a sweet distillate, since is it closely associated with sugar as well as the fact that this has been finished in casks that previously held Sweet Wines, so one would expect something sweeter than this. Hints of latex paint. Where the Wine-casks helped the nose past the Oloroso, here on the palate, the Oloroso clearly worked better. Which is a shame really, because the nose of the Quatre Vins is much better. Well, one supposedly can’t have it all. In the finish, obvious notes of slightly milky, Red Wine notes, Merlot, this time and again not one of the Quatre Vins, and yet another Red, how peculiar. Hints of toasted oak, European oak, spicy and tannic. The finish, with some plastic/polyester and bitter notes, is short and quickly moves into the aftertaste. Which is unbalanced, actually it falls apart into a woody (bitter) bit and an acidic, winey bit, making this one somewhat less tasty to drink. Still a shame really, since the nose is really good and interesting as well.

First of all, if you want old skool Jamaican funk, than maybe you should reconsider buying a Worthy Park just yet. Do you want to buy a good Rum, than Worthy Park is happy to oblige, why not, it can be, and usually is good stuff, even though this Quatre Vins is something of an strange beast. Which one to get is up to you. Between the two, the Oloroso version is better and easier to get through, although somewhat sweeter (and more of the burnt notes) and with a (slightly) less interesting nose than this Quatre Vins offering. This one in particular is let down a bit by the taste, with the Wine casks playing a dubious role, and definitely overpowering the Ex-Bourbon cask maturation.

Points: 81

Worthy Park Oloroso 2013 (55%, OB, Cask Selection Series #7, Ex-Bourbon 4 years & Ex-Oloroso 2 years, 1.612 bottles, Jamaica)

Since we already are on a roll with nice Rums, why not just continue and go on? I’ve got no choice actually, since some of the Rums I have, already have a dangerously low filling level, so they need to be reviewed before they are gone. After two Hampdens, and understanding better what kind of Rum Hampden actually is, maybe it is a good idea, to stay on the island of Jamaica some more and look at another example from one of the other distilleries, which in this case is Worthy Park again. I say again, because it already featured on these pages before, with the Single Estate Reserve and a Oloroso finished Rum Nation release. What was lacking in those reviews was maybe some more information about the distillery itself.

Although the year 1670 is put prominently on all the Worthy Park bottles, The first mention of distilling comes from 1741. As we all know, the Sugar industry in the Caribbean hit upon hard times for reasons mentioned before, so no use going into that again here. Fast forward several centuries. Worthy Park stopped distilling in 1960. Fast forward some decades to Gordon Clarke, member of the family that owns Worthy Park since 1918. We have seen Matt’s pictures of Hampden, a place that oozes the feel of steam punk and abandoned places. Hampden was revived to a workable state, essentially not changing much. It still looks 200 years old and dilapidated, which is a big bonus for us Rum aficionados. We love that kind of thing as we are utter romantics. Long Pond is another example, also an old distillery. Worthy Park, even though steeped in a similar century old history, was not revived as it was, no, Gordon Clarke decided to build a hyper modern, new distillery in 2005. Modern, efficient and clean. In it, a single 18.000 litre Pot Still built by Scotland’s pride: Forsyths. The first Rum from this distillery was bottled in 2007 as an unaged Rum. Personally, I’ll treat this as a new distillery, not feeling romantic about it at all. However, even with this sense of history gone, this surely doesn’t mean that the distillery is bad, far from it, we have already encountered some pretty decent Rums from Worthy Park.

Color: Orange brown.

Nose: What can I say, this reminds me of the Rum Nation version I reviewed 5 years ago big time, albeit dryer and more dusty and cardboard-like. Very light Jamaican funk (only), and even this wears down after some time in your glass. Slightly creamy, with raisins, pear, milk chocolate and some vanilla from the American oak. Wood and toasted cask. The “Oloroso” itself comes somewhat later. Next, lots of fresh and acidic citrus notes show themselves. Overall quite dry smelling. Sinaspril (very artificial orange flavoured head ache medicine for small children) and sometimes it seems like a grassy note whiffs by. Occasionally a whiff of cigarette smoke from further up this grassy field. Quite a spicy and austere Sherry note, starts dry, but over time, (in the glass), becomes more jam-like. Red Wine-like with a nearly ripe red fruit mix. Although both come from the same island, Jamaica, this is no where near Hampden in style. This is much cleaner and more modern, just like the distillery itself, almost completely lacking Jamaican Funk altogether. The nose is not really quintessentially Jamaican to me, maybe only that moment, right after pouring. If I would smell this not knowing what it was, on a bad day, not picking up at the traits that are arguably Jamaican, I could have easily gone for maybe Foursquare (from Barbados). Seems to me the base Rum was quite light and the finish quite heavy. Medium complexity.

Taste: Slightly sweet (but only right from the start) and spicy, quite some, again modern, wood influence. Somewhat hot going down. Vegetal wood, in part leafy, in part waxy, almost like virgin oak. This fresh wood influence is quite large to be honest. Licorice, and dull red fruit. Dusty and toned down fruit. Dry and woody and not at all that complex. Not very bitter wood though, which might be masked. After some breathing, the jam-like fruit separates into jam-like fruit and an acidic top note. This does liven the Rum up a bit, makes it fresher and distracts from the wood. I’m not sure, in this case, if this takes a way from the balance a bit. The aftertaste seems quite short, and fades away rather quickly and shows some hint of machine oil and vegetable oil. Nevertheless it is a highly drinkable Rum, even at this ABV. A fun bottling. I need to find out though how an older official Worthy Park would taste to see the influence in this Rum of its youth. 6 years is not much if you ask me, but then again, it is tropical ageing isn’t it?

If memory serves me well, I think the Rum nation offering pleased me slightly more. It was also older, so maybe the youth of this Worthy Park has something to do with it. Compared to the Single Estate Reserve the Oloroso does seem to add something to the whole, another layer, coming from the Oloroso finish. The label on the back of the Single Estate Reserve states that the Rum has aged 6 to 10 years in ex-Bourbon barrels, so mathematically it is older than the Oloroso finish. So the Oloroso finish trumps the extra ageing of the Single Estate Reserve. Well, therefore I still need to try the 12yo to have a better understanding of what ageing does to Worthy Park Rum.

Points: 83

Hampden 13yo 1992/2006 (66.2%, Cadenhead, “HLCF”, Pot Still, Jamaica)

The previous review was of a more recent official release and I wrote down some sparse and basic early history of Hampden Estate. Well, since all good things come in pairs, I’ve managed to unearth, from my stash of samples, a nice companion to the previous review. If you call the official one bottled at 60% “Overproof”, then surely this Cadenhead’s offering fits that bill as well, clocking in at 66.2% ABV. Since the previous review turned out to be quite a long one, I decided to leave it at that and keep the rest of the information I gathered for that review for future reviews of Hampden Rums. Well, the next one came along rather quickly, so I can now use this space to tell you some more about the recent history of Hampden as well as some basic info about the marks of Hampden.

By 2003 Hampden Estate was nearly bankrupt, and the government of Jamaica stepped in to save a lot of local jobs, since lots of people were employed by the estate as a whole, working for the sugar factory, the distillery, the great house and working the 750 acres of sugar cane fields. A lot of legalities were exercised between 2003 and 2009, when finally the Jamaican government sold Hampden Estate at auction. The new owners became Everglades Farms Ltd. owned by the Hussey Family. The Hussey’s are well known on the island owning several (different) businesses on the island.

When making Rum for different purposes, one can aim for a certain ester count. So for instance, when making Rum as used in baking, a high ester count is key, for it gives off a lot of aroma with a tiny amount of liquid. For our purpose, the more esters the heavier and more flavorsome the Rum becomes. Are you a Rum aficionado, then you likely prefer a high ester count, are you a novice, the lower marks are best places to start your Rum journey on (if you can find them on the label that is. Again I’m going to steer you towards Matt, since he has, yet again, a very informative page on his site about the marks of Jamaican Rum, as well as to the site of Marius where he comprised a list of which marks were produced in which years at Hampden Estate (especially useful for the independent bottlings of Hampden). We can put this to the test and look up 1992 and sure enough, 1992 is coupled with HLCF. HLCF stands for Hampden Light Continental Flavoured and has an ester count of 500 to 700 g/hlaa (grams per hectolitre of absolute alcohol), which in comparison to most other Rums on the market is very heavy, but for Hampden, this mark can be found on the bottom half of the list!

Before we dip into this Rum here is the list of Hampden Marks:

  • DOK – Dermot Owen Kelly – 1500-1600 g/hla
  • C<>H – Continenal Hampden – 1300-1400 g/hlaa
  • H/GML – Hampden George MacFarquhar Lawson – 1000-1100 g/hlaa
  • <>H – Hampden – 900-1000 g/hlaa
  • H/LCF – Hampden Light Continental Flavoured – 500- 700 g/hlaa
  • LROK – Light Rum Owen Kelly – 250- 350 g/hlaa
  • LFCH – Lawrence Francis Close Hussey – 85- 120 g/hlaa
  • OWH – Outram Warmold Hussey – 40- 80 g/hlaa

Color: Light gold.

Nose: Banana (only in the first nano-seconds or so) and some soft dull wood, cold gravy and tree sap. Even more banana and papaya come next, and like the previous Hampden a lot of fruit in the pre-rot phase, especially pineapple. Passion fruit ice cream mixed with vanilla ice cream and a wee sprinkle of wee (lukewarm urine, acidic). Wow all this just leaps at you. Vegetal, with dried pineapple and an undefined solvent. Dry and dusty notes with licorice (of the all sorts kind), announcing wood. Funk, dried cow dung (lying in the sun) and leather. Artificial fertilizer and a slight note of warm plastic, like the electrical cable mentioned in the previous review. Cold black tea. Very fruity with lots of spicy and woody notes for balance (I don’t get the wood all the time though…). 17th century spices. Sailing ship hold after a spice transport. Very well balanced. The freshly emptied glass reveals cinnamon, and dare I say that it smells even better than the glass still containing the Rum. Maybe the high ABV gets a bit in the way of things, although normally that isn’t a problem for me. Soft wood, and more different spices, still this associated with times lone gone. I don’t know why, it just doesn’t smell like anything from the past two centuries I guess. The note mentioned earlier turns into a more organic urine note, steamed up sauna full of people. Died out fire, cold burnt wood, charcoal. Very complex and laid back. Hints of grenadine lemonade and even the slightest whiff of cola and unripe green apples. Amazing stuff, very different from those dosed and utterly sweet and cloying Rums, some people believe to be true Rum. Remember the Rums of A.H. Riise and even worse, Don Papa? Freak out!

Taste: Starts with most of the fruits from the nose as well as the wood, and its bitterness, and the urine notes with some added ear wax notes. Might sound horrible, but isn’t, although it’s impossible to shed this association. I guess this makes this Rum not for everyone, but I don’t think “everybody” will seek out this Rum that was bottled a good fifteen years ago. Fruity with ashes. Oranges and lemons to some degree, but it seems to be those aroma’s without being all that citrussy. Hope this still makes sense… Warming and friendly. Some toffee and warm caramel, but to a lesser extent than your usual Rum. Very well balanced. I would never have guessed this was as high in ABV as it is. Quite tasty but with, in some areas, medium staying power. Some bitterness in the finish, as well as the urine and some varnish and/or resin.

This is a Rum (I mean Hampden in general) that in nose and taste, is closer to “extreme” than “middle of the road”. It is very big and unusual. Rivière du Mât is another good example of this. I guess both Rums are not for you, if you are new to the game of Rum, nor if have a mind unlike a parachute (works best when open). An acquired taste.

Comparing the Cadenhead’s offering to the Overproof shows us something interesting. First of all, the Cadenhead’s is five years older, yet the Overproof is darker in colour. That in itself isn’t saying much, however, the Overproof is made up of foremost lighter marks OWH and LROK (OK, and a wee bit DOK for good measure) and the Cadenheads offering with H/LCF, but smelling both side by side the Overproof seems fuller, less fresh and acidic, yet more syrupy and glue like, so more of this indistinct solvent mentioned above. The average consumer would associate the smell of Overproof more like a “classic” Rum. The Cadenhead’s offering smells quite different and more complex (as it should). Both are actually quite good, and quite different as well. Both have their good and bad sides to them. Cadenhead’s needs some work and experience from the taster, Overproof is more forgiving and surely would please more people. For me personally, the Overproof just might be the better Rum overall, although that obviously is a matter of taste, but the Cadenhead’s has the better, definitely less cloying and more complex finish. The Overproof seems to be also a more modern Rum, where the Cadenhead’s brings back times long forgotten. Both Rums have been a blast to review.

The empty glass (the next day) smells of wood and hints of chlorine, yet soft and waxy, hints of lemon (acidity) and wood and a wild mix of herbs. Old machine oil, like lying on the bottom of an old motor vessel that hasn’t run for many years. (Rivière du Mât has also this old machine and industrial feel to it, maybe even more so). Smelling an empty glass the next day, can reveal things you didn’t pick up on when tasting, and especially with Hampden Rums this seems true.

Points: 87

Hampden Estate Overproof (60%, OB, LM191, Jamaica)

What can we say about Hampden Estate. First of all, I don’t want to be a completist here and write down a full-blown history. On one hand there is much better information online than I can write down here by myself, and on the other hand, there actually is also not a lot to be found. There are a few great sources for information, but there is still way less information available on Rum than there is on Whisky. Much less. If you have some time then Matt’s visit of Hampden is an excellent read.

Hampden started out somewhere in the 18th century already, and the distillery today still operates more or less in the same way today. Old skool. The first mention of Hampden was in 1684. However, Hampden’s own website starts history in 1753 (as a sugar plantation), but no clear year is mentioned for the start of Hampden as a Rum distillery, only 1779 is coupled with Hampden Great House where the ground floor was a Rum store. What we do know is that somewhere Hampden started distilling Rum, as did many sugar plantations, when exports of sugar from sugarcane started dwindling, when in Europe sugar was made from sugar beets in stead of cane. What we also know is that Hampden, after all there years, still looks more or less unchanged, and looking at Matt’s pictures, steam-punk comes to mind as well as the pictures from fans of abandoned places. Time definitely stood still here big time.

Hampden is also known for its Jamaican funk, and of all the Jamaican funk that can be had, Hampden is probably the mother of Jamaican funk. The funk is partially there because of a very long fermentation, somewhere between 8 and 15 days, fermentation with wild yeasts that just come flying in with the wind. No yeast is added. Also, Hampden produces a sugar cane vinegar (muck) that is added during the fermentation, helping the funky aroma along. Hampden currently has four stills they call the heart of the distillery, and rightly so, but I guess that is true for most, of not all, distilleries: A 1960 John Dore (7.560 litres) from Forsyths, Scotland, a 1994 Vendome from Kentucky (18.900 litres), a 2010 Forsyth still (18.900 litres) and the most recent addition is a Pot still made by T&T from South Africa (18.900 litres). All stills are heated with coils on the inside.

Hampden’s core range consists of Hampden 46 (8 years of tropical ageing) and Hampden 60 (or Overproof, 7yo and older, a mix of different marks). I have yet to try the 46% ABV. I never got around to it because, up ’till now, I always believed it is the reduced version of the Overproof, but that might not be true. The Hampden I’m about to try must be one of the early bottles, where the front label mentions 8yo and the back label 7 yo, whereas newer versions have a more prominent 8 on the front label. To add to the confusion. The website mentions 7 years again. However I still believe the 46% is nothing more than the reduced version of the Overproof.

Color: Orange gold.

Nose: Highly aromatic. Big, fatty, sweet and nutty. Fruity with bath/shower cosmetics florality. No, you cannot even call this big, no, this has an humongous aroma, so high level of esters indeed. Fruity and fresh. Acidic and lively. Fatty nuts, almonds. High ester Rums like this are used for their aroma’s for baking and yes, that’s where you know this aroma from. After the initial wave of bigness passes, a little bit of wood starts to become noticeable, grows bigger over time and is here to stay. Some oak and some pencil shavings and an indistinct herbal quality, as well as a tiny hint of car exhaust. It is remarkable how the big, fatty and syrupy start does move back to leave some room for more astringent notes like the woody notes. It doesn’t even carry this promise for a sweet toffee’d Rum any more. I have to say excellent balance after some air. A sort of instant classic. Unique. A must-have.

Taste: Where the wood is somewhat laid back in the nose, it is most definitely present here on the palate. The wood opens the ball. Modern wood, but that probably won’t make any sense to you. hint of plastics, otherwise it smells of tropical ageing, you just sense the heat that surrounded the cask. Acidic. Big fruit and quite a lot of fresh acidity as well, with this underlying woody backbone. Acidity bordering on very, very (over)ripe fruit, the pre-rot phase almost. The wood becomes more dark chocolaty in style, and more spicy. Less herbal though, but more leathery in stead. Wood and ear wax. In fact the ear-wax was here right from the beginning, just in the plethora of things I didn’t recognize it immediately. The bitterness moves forward now, especially noticeable in the back of your mouth. The wood is upfront but luckily, in this case, its not over the top bitter. At this point, the pencil shaving note on the note grows stronger. On the palate it shows some similarities with Demerara Rum and a specific Port Mourant comes to mind. This is not something I get all the time. When trying this late at night, with a tired and fulfilled palate, the Demerara association isn’t there. So this has some bitterness and it certainly shows wood which now picks up a slight soapiness, reminding me of the bath/shower cosmetics from the nose. The aftertaste is long and warming with a key role for the woody bitterness, but again, it is kept in check sufficiently not to bother you.

For me this is a good Rum with a good ABV, sold at a very fair (good) price and with good availability as well. In hindsight it also has a remarkable simplicity uncommon for a high ester Rum. This is the overproof version and I hear some good stories about the reduced versions as well. I may have to look into those as well, since by now there are some more expressions to choose from than the 46% ABV version alone. Hampden LROK, and Hampden LROK the younger, both bottled at 47% ABV have become available just recently. LROK is a mark given by Hampden. LROK stands for Light Rum Owen Kelly and by this, it tells you that is has 250-350 g/hlaa of esters. By the way, this Overproof version is made with several marks: OWH (Outram Warmold Hussey, 40-80 g/hlaa), LROK and DOK (Dermot Owen Kelly, 1500-1600 g/hlaa). I don’t think a lot of DOK went into this blend to be honest. More about “Mark and Ester” in the next Hampden review.

Points: 88

The empty glass, the next day, smells of warm electrical cable and the dusty insides of an old transistor radio. How odd…

Worthy Park Single Estate Reserve (45%, OB, Jamaica)

A few years back I had a Worthy Park from Rum Nation on my lectern, which was definitely not bad. Nope, not bad at all. Here is another one, but this time it’s not bottled by an independent bottler, but by the owners themselves! Hurray! Finally some more worthy OB’s! I’m already sort-of happy this was bottled at 45% ABV and not a lackluster 40%, which often hurts the Rum, just look at both offerings from Foursquare: Both Doorly’s 12yo and the 9yo Port Cask Finish were bottled at 40% ABV, and suffered a bit from reduction if you ask me. Especially Rum, and this is my personal view, fares well at higher strengths. Sure I like it better, but I also feel it presents itself and all the flavors and aroma’s better. Sure, when starting out with Rum I had no beef with lower strength Rums and found lots of Rums were quite good (even the one’s that aren’t all that good in hindsight). As time and experience progresses, I find that the higher strength really does matter considerably. However, as said before, this may not be true for you, so please don’t take my word for it and make up your own mind. The owner of the bottle I’m about to review found this quite alcoholic in comparison to The Rum Nation Guadeloupe I reviewed not too long ago. Let’s see in a few years time what his thoughts are about this Rum.

Color: Gold.

Nose: Yes Worthy Park alright, I recognize it immediately from the Rum Nation bottling I reviewed a few years back. Funky banana, sweet wax and nutty. Lots of fruity banana. Very fragrant. Very fruity. Runny toffee, with an edge of fresh oak and almonds. The big fatty note subsides a bit to show more dry and slightly woody notes. Dried vegetable powder. Sweet Grain Whisky reminding me of Girvan. Vitamin C dust, sawdust and Pisang Goreng (baked banana), complete with the dough and powdered sugar. Milk Chocolate. I have to say I really like the play between the sweet banana toffee notes and the dryer grainy, tea-like and woody notes. More sugared yellow fruits and even some warm licorice. After more breathing, a more alcoholic and green note appears. Showing some apparent youth, which in this case is certainly not bad. More warm licorice and cooked vegetables. Cold gravy. Easily recognizable as a Worthy Park though, but also some surprises are here to be had. I like this one, it smells good.

Taste: Wow, definitely less sweet than the nose promised. I may have used that line before. In fact, this is also thinner than I thought. Less fatty and less sweet. The big nutty and banana note almost seem absent. Starts with (slightly bitter and slightly nutty) wood, Greek green olives and tea. Warming. Quite dry, which is a nice surprise after the banana smell, unless you are expecting a banana nose as well. Already the body seems to un-balance itself, which is a pity. The balance was never this Rums biggest fortay since the difference between the nose and the palate is easily noticeable. Somewhat short in the finish-department as well, lacking warmth, with the bitter wood note having the longest breath. Salty on the lips, like the brine from the Greek green olives.

This is a nice Worthy Park, but for me this doesn’t eclipse a lot of independently bottled Worthy Parks. This in fact surprised me a bit being dryer than most Worthy Parks I tried from the independents, thus showing a somewhat new side to me. Is it the best? Certainly not, it is a bit thin on the palate, but it certainly isn’t pointless at all, I really like the dry profile. This is definitely worth knowing, and I do like it. It is an education, and I’m happy I have been given the opportunity to try it. I don’t think you need the whole bottle for the experience. On par with the Monymusk I just reviewed, but I have to admit this one is growing on me. If I would have an open bottle of this, this might grow on me as well. So in time I will get back to this for sure.

Points: 82

Thanks to Auke for the sample.

Monymusk 12yo 2003/2015 (46%, Kill Devil, 309 bottles, L15 008 PB, Jamaica)

After the Moka Intense, why not try another Rum while we’re at it. Lance was nudging me in the ribs for quite some time and I started to feel a bit sore and guilty actually for letting him down for so long! Yesureebob! This time I’m going to have a look at a bottle of Rum I bought when visiting the U.K. a few years back. When visiting one of my favorite retailers, I found three different Kill Devil Jamaican Rums. Kill Devil is the Rum brand of Hunter Laing, best known as an Independent Whisky bottler. Maybe Old Malt Cask rings a bell? For reasons I really can’t remember now, I chose this one to be the first of the three to open.

Monymusk, for Whisky-people at least, maybe known as a Scottish village. It isn’t even a Jamaican distillery. Monymusk in fact, is the sugar factory next to the big and modern Clarendon Distillery and name giver to this “brand” of Rum. So Monymusk is made at the Clarendon distillery, which is owned by NRJ (National Rums of Jamaica) and Diageo (for Captain Morgan). NRJ itself, is owned by the National Sugar Company (Jamaican Government), Maison Ferrand (of Plantation Rum fame) and Demerara Distillers Limited (we know for El Dorado Rums). What a partnership! Imagine being invited to a party thrown by these people! I imagine a very sweaty Caribbean night indeed. By the way, NRJ also owns the Long Pond distillery and the now defunct Innswood distillery, which is now used for aging casks. After WWII (in 1949 to be exact), Clarendon was built with Pot Stills and much later (somewhere around 2009) the modern addition was made, housing Column Stills. Since our Monymusk was distilled in 2003, we know which stills “did it”…

Color: Straw.

Nose: Ahhh, Jamaican Funk, with dust and vanilla powder, yet also extremely fresh. Big and grassy. Mocha and milk chocolate. Old leather. Almonds and a lemon and lime peel note in the back, maybe even some orange peel, but to a lesser extent. Whiffs of gun-powder occasionally fly past, as well as a different burnt note, more like well roasted meat, roasted (not burnt) to a crisp. More almonds and ear wax. What I quite like is the citrus combined with the thick Jamaican funk, well maybe not that thick, not very thick at all actually. This is more like funk light. Jamaican funkette. Its there but balanced out by a fresh beach/sea note and obviously the citrussy aromas which combine very nicely. Some nice soft wood washes ashore (along with some paper). A light Monymusk, but quite balanced and appealing. Easy going and all is well integrated. Don’t confuse lightness with reduction to 46% ABV. Even cask strength Rums can be light, and this Monymusk surely was probably light in its cask strength form as well.

Taste: Waxy and funky. Short sweetish and nutty burst that washes down quickly. Paper and cardboard followed by a sweet honeyed note and some licorice, finishing the first sip off with a medium pepper attack. Warming. Second time around, more wood is showing and the paper/cardboard note returns as well. More bitter this time, bitterness from wood and again this ear wax aroma. Green and spicy and also a bit minty. Laurel licorice, that’s it! Given more time, some sweeter notes do appear. Sweetish cold black tea with more almonds and dried out yellow fruits. Dry pineapple comes to mind. Since there isn’t actually that much wood (apart from the bitter notes), I’m guessing this wasn’t a very active cask otherwise. Light color and the weak finish also tell some tales. After a while some medium bitter, waxy and sometimes even industrial notes appear, which takes away from the balance a bit. After some breathing, it’s also dryer than expected. The Jamaican funkette seems to have taken a back seat, or maybe found it’s way all back into the boot/trunk (or the trailer for that matter). Not a long finish actually, similar in lightness, to the Cadenhead Epris I reviewed earlier (only in lightness mind you, the similarity ends there). Light aftertaste, but not much at all. Although the laurel licorice seems to have some staying power.

Although not the world’s most powerful Monymusk, it has good drinkability. Definitely a better nose than taste. The body falls down a bit, and it is also a bit weak in the finish and aftertaste. The nose was better balanced as well, but hey, no real off-notes. It is a decent Jamaican Rum, but also nothing more than that. There are many better offerings of Monymusk to be found, and if you already bought this, you’ll have no problem finishing it. I haven’t. Yes, quite light in style, which is OK and reduced in ABV as well, which maybe somewhat less OK to be honest. I wonder how this was at cask strength although you really can’t make up for quality that way, but I’m sure in this case it would surely have helped a bit.

Clarendon can make a lot of different marks, from light to very, very, very heavy (lots and lots of esters), so from such an uninformative label as Kill Devil has, you never know what you’re gonna get. You don’t say, Forest! Its Jamaican and its Monymusk, but that’s about it. Excellent introduction to the Jamaican Rum-style if you’re a novice, although I do wonder if a novice would go for a Kill Devil bottle to boot or any other independent bottler? I don’t know. Entry-level it is not, but definitely second tier. Maybe Hunter Laing (and the others) should not reduce Rums at all, we well experienced (Rum) drinkers and anoraks are willing to pay more for a cask strength Rum. Yes we do, don’t we Lance?

Points: 82

Worthy Park 8yo 2006/2015 (50%, Rum Nation, Pot Still, Oloroso Sherry Finish, Release 2015, L-15-020, Jamaica)

I just finished both bottles from Foursquare, Doorly’s 12yo and Foursquare 9yo Port Finish. Both close connected and although the latter is an exceptional cask selection, I did not really prefer it over the 12yo. Both were (too) easy drinkers @ 40% ABV. After trying whole bottles of both, I have to admit, I also got a bit bored with them, lacking in strength and development in the glass. For me it was clear, both suffered from too much reduction, since the potential was there. Sure, hot, cask strength Rums aren’t for everyone, but for a (sipping) Rum to carry its aroma’s well and excite, I would say 46% (to 50%) ABV is better, if you want to reduce it. Forget about 43%, just skip it and go straight for 46%. Both were enjoyable nevertheless because the Foursquare spirit is a good one, with lots of potential, so I will definitely seek out other expressions of Foursquare in the near future. Preferably cask strength ones, like the official 2004 vintage or one from an independent bottler, because Foursquare is hot these days.

Well, empty bottles calls for replacements, so one of the new ones I picked from my stash is this Rum Nation Jamaica Pot Still Rum 8yo, which, in the shops, has already been replaced by a 5yo expression, again with a Oloroso Sherry finish. Look, here we have a reduced Rum bottled at 50% ABV. I expect a better aroma transport system (ATS). since this seems to me to be the ideal drinking strength for a sipping Rum. With Jamaican Rum being a favourite (style) of mine and this one is seemingly not reduced to death, I expect quite a lot actually. Not sure about the Oloroso finish just yet. It works for Whisky, but we’ll see if that works for this Rum as well.

Color: Copper orange.

Nose: Big Jamaican funk shooting out of my glass, bold and eager. Nice dry woody notes and overall it doesn’t come across as very sweet and creamy. Dark chocolate and sandal wood. Images of sand and pan flute music. That’s a good start. Medium cream then and also a bit dusty and yes, a bit alcoholic as well, but that’s what we wanted, right? Hints of a well-integrated acidic wine-note on top. Nutty. It seems to me the Oloroso was matured in European oak. Licorice, toasted cask, black coal and hot asphalt. Wow, I love that! Lots of toffee combined with hidden vegetal notes. Dry leaves and even some burning leaves. Indian spices. Love how this smells. There is and indescribable and extremely appetizing note I recognize from a Cadenheads bottling of Enmore I have. This strikes a chord with me, because that was the first real Rum I bought based on its nose alone. Amazing nose on this Jamaican, where many different aroma’s just switch on and off, all the time.

Taste: Initially quite hot and funky, but that is only a short burst. Vegetal right from the start. Nice beginning with vanilla, toffee, honey and caramel, with the leafy bit in here as well. Cigarette ashes and cinnamon. Not as funky and big as the nose promised though, which is a bit of a shame really, especially after a few seconds. Turns quite dry with a paper-like quality. Less balanced as well. Medium sweet, or even less than that, since the dryness (wood) starts to dominate. Definitely less boring than both Foursquare bottlings mentioned above. Hints of wood sap, soap and blue ink with an additional bitter edge. The body dries out, and the finish is quite short, with hardly anything staying behind in the aftertaste, amazingly. If anything, I would say a small sour note from the Sherry. Character building stuff though. 50% ABV really helps this Rum forward. A shame though, the Jamaican funk got lost in the body and finish of this Rum. Take small sips in short succession to deal with this “problem”.

I understand this got replaced with a similar 5yo. Worthy Park again, as well as the Oloroso finish. It is said that the younger Rum is even more funky, which should be able to deal with the Oloroso finish better. It should also be more typically Jamaican on the palate. I guess this will help the taste reach a better balance, but we’ll have to see how the nose worked out. For me the Oloroso finish on this 8yo worked wonders on the nose, but was maybe a step too far on the taste. Probably the reason to repeat the experiment with a younger, bolder, Rum from the same distillery. Maybe they also tweaked the amount of time of finishing.

Points: 85

Monymusk 5yo (46%, Renegade Rum Company, JMA, Tempranillo Finish, Jamaica)

Renegade Rum Company. What might that be? If you are familiar with Single Malt Whiskies, then the name Bruichladdich should mean something to you. In fact it will mean the world, since it is one of the famous Whiskies from the Isle of Islay. Home of the best peated Whiskies in the world, only historically, Bruichladdich is more famous for its unpeated Whiskies than for their peated Whiskies. To put an end to that, master distiller Jim McEwan started to make Port Charlotte, a heavily peated Single Malt Whisky (around 40 ppm phenols) and the astronomically peated Octomore (up to 258 ppm, which is a lot more than 40 ppm). There is no normal way to peat Whisky that high, so in comes the skill of Jim. Bruichladdich is also the home of The Botanist Gin, made up with botanicals from Islay, and also of Renegade Rum. Jim supposedly hand-picked casks of Rum and hand-picked Wine casks to finish those Rums in. Expect relatively young Rums, all finished in some sort of Wine cask. All reduced to 46% ABV, in my book better than the usual 40% ABV. Anything below 40% I don’t even consider buying if I have to be honest. In everything Jim does he pushes the envelope, so prepare yourself, as will I, for an unusual Rum experience…

monymusk-5yo-42-renegade-rum-company-jma-temperanillo-finish-jamaicaColor: Light gold.

Nose: Yep, funky Jamaican style. I love the high ester quality it has to it. Easy to recognize. Fresh cookie dough. Extremely creamy. Already the promise of a cloying syrupy Rum. Wait a minute… A drier note emerges. Old raisins and some wood. There is a note here I struggled for a while to identify, so common, but what is it? Its Grappa! The Temperanillo cask infused a Grappa note to this Rum. Grassy, hay-like. Clay, butter candy and a more vegetal note. If you have ever sticked your nose in the hole of an empty Red Wine cask, you’ll recognize its strong spicy notes in this Rum as well. Nice and quite unusual for a Rum. Amazing how the finish is taking over the Rum when you let it breathe for a while. When nosing this the high ester Jamaican smell is retreating quickly (move it around a bit so it gets some more air, and it briefly returns). With the Grappa nota also a more nutty aroma emerges as well as some warm butter. So it starts big, funky and creamy but after a while it has this well-balanced dryness combined with a nice warm butter note. This is the most two-faced Rum I have smelled untill now. A bit unusual, but I like it. Pushing the envelope a bit. If you love Grappa, you’ll love this nose.

Taste: Here the funky part is even shorter. Upon entering your mouth, for a brief moment, you think you are drinking a typical and clean and simple example of a Jamaican Rum, but it turns around rather quickly. Lots of wood and heaps of acidic woody notes followed by strange red fruit acidity from stale Wine. It doesn’t have the taste of wood itself though. It also lacks the bitterness of clean wood. No, its different. What it also lacks is the Grappa I found on the nose, for some that is a good thing, but it also makes for a somewhat unbalanced Rum. Well it’s not really a Rum either, especially a Jamaican Rum. What it does have is some nice exotic spices, dare I say Indian again? Also slightly soapy and floral, and it has some notes of Foursquare as well, which is a Rum, although not Jamaican. A long time after swallowing, a very discrepant winey, acidic and fruity note re-appears, combined with toasted cask, well hidden into the background. Can’t really say that the finish is well-balanced. It’s like a race where all the competitors cross the finish well apart from each other, running different distances as well. So unbalanced it is, and definitely the weakest part of the whole experience.

This bottle is clearly an experiment. Where for me it works wonders on the nose, it doesn’t actually work that well when tasting it. Somehow the finish overpowers the young Jamaican Rum. Maybe this experiment would have worked better if the Jamaican Rum was older, bigger, more of a match to the Tempranillo?

So there it is. I love Jamaican Rum to death, I love Jim McEwan and I love a good experiment, and that is what experiments are for. You try something that is usually out-of-the-box. It might work or not. Here it clearly works on the nose, but less so on the taste. So not the best of Rums around, and the score will reflect that, but because of its out-of-the-box-ness I still would buy one, although many of the Renegades are sold out by now…

Points: 81

Plantation Jamaica 2000 (42%, Old Reserve, 2013, Jamaica)

Some two months ago I reviewed the first Plantation Rum bottled in the Old Reserve Series, time for another one. The first one was made in Guyana, an easy choice since I do love Demerara’s. Same with Jamaica. Jamaican Rums tend to be big and bold, high on esters and funky! Actually Jamaica 2000 (in the old bottle, like the review of the Guyana), was my first Plantation Rum ever. That one was stunning. Here we have probably the first batch, released in the new bottle. There is a laser edged code on the bottle stating this one was bottled on April 18, 2013. I know both batches already, and there is some batch variation. I found the earlier one even bigger than the one I’m about to review here…

Plantation Jamaica 2000 (new bottle)

Color: Full gold.

Nose: Extremely buttery start. Lots of caramel and toffee aroma’s. Big, big, big, compared to other Rums from this range. It smells sweet, candy-like and so funky. I love the smell of stuff like this. Sugared yellow fruits in alcohol. Buried deep down below, there is this wine-note, so Cognac is noticeable. Ex-Cognac casks were used to finish the Rum in. Leather, nuts, nougat, chocolate. Hazelnuts, wood and sawdust. It’s all in here and for you to smell, so the big Rum didn’t even overpower it all, so no heavy thick cloak of toffee lies over this Rum, or is it? Next, because these is an evolution going on, a more nutty aroma emerges. Wood, almonds and cold black tea. The whole seems to become drier, which I like. Smells great, as often with Jamaican Rums.

Taste: Not as thick as one would expect, and certainly not as chewy. Fruity, yes. It is not overly sweet as well, but the sweetness is your typical refined sugar taste, as well as some burnt sugar. Right from the start quite some influence from the wood, combined with the defining Jamaican funk from the smell. Toffee, wax and nuts. Vanilla Ice-cream with Rum and raisins, which I also remember from Christmas. No big toffee from the nose as well. Liquid toffee and alcohol. Without smelling it, I repeat, without the smell, tasting this blind I would almost call this an Abuelo expression (the 7yo), only less sweet and more powerful. How strange. It has a nice woody backbone, with a slight bitter edge to it. Cask toast, burnt sugar, something like that. Warming. letting this “melt” on your tongue, a more fruity aroma emerges and even some fresh artisanal cola notes, which aren’t so damn sweet as those sold to you by the US sugar mafia. Whatever the aroma, it will always be slightly woody accompanied with a woody and waxy bitterness. I guess in this case the finish did some work on the typical Jamaican profile.

Just try something like this from Jamaica and try to compare it to a Rhum Agricole, I bet you can’t do that in the same tasting without losing something that both Rums offer. That far apart are both distillates, and so broad is the scope of Rum.

Since I still have it around, I compared it directly to the Guyanan offering I reviewed earlier: The Guyana seems more organic. More smells from the earth in that one. Flora and fauna and a wee hay-like Grappa note. Both share the same waxy notes though. In the taste the Guyana is a bit sharper and hotter. The Jamaica is definitely sweeter, and the sweetness overpowers the finish. Both are influenced by wood. In fact, both are similar but not similarly good, and if you have one of them, you don’t really need the other as well. Yes the smell is different, but the treatment both have received by their owners have brought them closer together.

Points: 81

Appleton Estate 21yo (43%, Jamaica)

A long time ago I reviewed a 12yo from Appleton Estate and liked that very much. Not so hard since I love the Jamaican style of Rum making. Time now to try out the super premium 21yo. Besides the 12yo and the 21yo there are several other expressions in the Appleton Portfolio. In fact the 21yo is the super premium Rum from the portfolio and it doesn’t come cheap, ok, not really expensive either, but I see huge differences between one market and the other. On top of the 21yo comes a 50yo “Independence Reserve”, well that costs as much as a small car, but for that amount of money you do get one of the best Rums money can buy. The 12yo I reviewed earlier is the best of the rest and before that one comes a 8yo and an entry-level Rum called “VX”. Apart from that there are a special gold and special white colored Rums for ya cocktails.

Appleton Estate 21yoColor: orange Brown.

Nose: Thick and woody and dusty. Right from the start it is showing its age. Over aged old high ester rum. Jamaican and delicious. Hints of tar and dry. Over time becoming even drier. I have to say already, this is an excellent nose. Paint stripped old wood, dusty and worthy of restoration. Red apple skin and latex paint. Fresh creamy butter. Custard. Christmas pudding, without the Christmas. Dried old orange skins. Hints of very old Demerara Rum.

Taste: Quite woody. Mahogany, old furniture. Hints of old dry Demerara. Burn furniture. That slightly burnt note is very typical for Rums that have aged for a long time. I like that, but it may be an acquired taste. Decent sweetness balanced by old dark wood. Chocolate powder and hard coffee flavoured candy. Quite fruity and gives off some dry heat. Despite all this I have to inform you it’s only delicious, but lacks a bit of complexity I would have though and Jamaican Rum of this age would have. Quite a long finish though with some burnt wood and…wait for it…cow manure. Coming with the complexity, maybe even a wee bit too short aftertaste. The whole is utterly delicious though.

I tried this long ago and found it too woody then. Now it and I have aged some more, I truly like it. It’s not overly woody, but it may be a wee bit too simple, soft and a wee bit too easy-going. Nevertheless, lovely stuff, maybe a bit to expensive compared tot the complexity, but very nice and drinkable. Dare I say, again, that it has been reduced too much?

points: 88