A wee break from whisky before the Feis Ile 2018 hailstorm hits us with some Rum goodness. In the coming week (even along with the Feis Ile posts), I’ll review a few Caroni rums that I was fortunate enough to taste lately, starting with this Caroni 1998 Vintage.
Caroni distillery, located in Trinidad was closed in 2002 and the demolished, therefor many refers to it like the Port Ellen of rums because of the striking similarity between them: Caroni being dirty (PE was peated) Substantial stock waiting to be bottled and rapidly increasing prices. Flavor-wise I think the Caroni flavors (especially when it’s heavier distillate) are more of a cross between Ardbeg and Springbank whiskies.
This 19 Year Old Caroni is a joint bottling of a Caroni cask by Kintra and The Rum Mercenary. The Rum was distilled back in January 1998, filled into cask #6 that was bottled on 22/09/2017 after 19 years (Mostly on mainland Eruope) to yield 158 bottles at 55.1%. Our Rum club had the Rum Mercenary bottling which is presented with the lovely label shown on the right, while the Kintra label is more conservative (shown below in the notes).
Caroni Rum 19 Year Old (1998-2017) Kintra/Rum Mercenary (55.1%, €151,25)
Nose: Sweet wood and raisins, almost sherry like. Then there’s that Caroni dirtiness, tar, diesel oil fumes, salted fishes, black olives, brown sugar, toasted oak and sweet burnt plastic.
Palate: Sweet tar, coffee, burnt wood and rubber, salt, olives, fermented fruit and banana leaves, wood spices, sweet burnt tires and plastic with some oak spices.
Finish: Short medium, lingering sweet wood, olives, gentle sweet burnt plastic in throat.
Thoughts: Phew, this is one hardcore Caroni rum. It sports a lot of lovely Caroni dirtiness and oxidization mellow it a bit, but there’s too much burnt tires/plastic notes that prevent it from being a top-notch Caroni. Nevertheless, this is still a worthy good drinking rum.
Whisky Gospel 