West Indies Dark Rum 1948 Samaroli 49% vs Lapalun Rhum Petit-Bourg Vieux Rhum dela Martinique 1952 / 1972 50%
West Indies Dark Rum 1948 / 1991 Samaroli 49%
Probably the most nuanced rum I have had the pleasure to taste. In quick succession: molasses, licorice, cedar wood, sweet seaweed, half a black olive, old brown paper. There is also something agricultural: crushed twigs and stems, oiled and sooty machinery starting up. Juices from crushed leaves. And then sweeties: Gula melaka, candied coconut (a lot). Back to crushed grapeseed, a drop of petrol. This is by no means a behemoth rum the way tropically aged Veliers are, but fabulously knitted into a most elegant and subtle nose. The palate has dried orange rind and dried ginger slices but turns towards a diaphanous earth and phenols with traces of petrol, tobacco, dry brown paper, sack cloth, cinnamon shavings ancient libraries filled with ancient oak. Very dry! Incredibly elegant yet a firmly coherent structure. Exquisite. 93 pts
Lapalun Rhum Petit-Bourg Vieux Rhum dela Martinique 1952 / 1972 50%
Something of a secret as this was available only in Japan. You might say as highly regarded as the Samaroli in Rum circles. Oh, big. Cough syrup, diluted blended black forest cake, black jams and gasoline fumes. Add brine, cold tar, a drop of soy, capers and a metric ton of preserved sweet olives – the sticky black seedless ones that came in colourful cellophane wrapper from old Chinatown that granny was never short on. Licorice and sunken boggy composting oak trunks covered in mushrooms – in a good way. Old chests in the cellar filled with musty things – again good. Black tea concentrate and black ash, especially on the tongue. Unsweetened cola, and gentian bitters. It’s a familiar style of heavy Rhum recognizably leaning towards Navy rums, but gone is the bluster and brass, leaving a refined take on a bruiser of a style. 90 pts.
Whiskyrific RSS
- Millburn 36 yo 1969 / 2005 Douglas Laing #DL2152 50% vs Glenburgie 40 yo 1963 / 2003 Signatory #4751 56.4%
- Ben Nevis 23 yo 1996 / 2019 Single Malts of Scotland for the Nectar #536 51.3% vs A Speyside Distillery 32 yo 1989 / 2022 Thompson Bros 51.4%
- Brora 22 yo 1972 / 1995 Rare Malts 61.1% vs Brora 22 yo 1972 / 1995 Rare Malts 58.7%
- Talimburg 19 yo 1986 / 2005 The Whisky Fair #1485 45.9% vs Talisker 20 yo 1981 / 2002 62%
- Caol Ila 12 yo Bulloch Lade for Zenith 43% vs Caol Ila 30 yo 1979 / 2010 Berry Bros #4604/5 55.6%
- Clynelish 29 yo 1965 Whyte & Whyte 52.1%
- Brora 21 yo 1982 / 2003 Signatory #416 58.4% vs Clynelish 27 yo 1982 / 2009 Synch Eli Daily Dram 46%
- Dornoch 5 yo 2017 / 2023 #46 ‘Jasper Broers’ 57.9% vs Shizuoka ‘private cask’ 2017 / 2022 #2017-108 61%
- Clynelish 26 yo 1993 / 2020 Carn Mor #11215 52.7% vs Bowmore 17 yo 2004 /2021 SMWS 3.327 ‘Siren’s Song’ 57.1%
- Talisker 25 yo ‘Bottle TA25 3987’ 45.8% ~ bottle code L0296CM004 bottled 2020 vs Ledaig 11 yo 2008 / 2019 The Swan Song & 1BRD #700104 58.7%
whiskyrific 