It’s been a while since we had a non-whisky review and once again I turn to a Rum bottled by The Duchess, this time their recent 21 Year Old Caroni.

This Caroni was distilled 02/1998, then matured for 21 years in cask #20 before finally being bottled on 05/03/2019, yielding 245 bottles from the cask (so not 100% tropical weather maturation).

This is a sister cask to the 20 Year Old Caroni The Duchess released last year and I loved it so let’s see how this one with extra year fares:

Caroni 1998 21 Year Old (The Duchess) (64.1%, €199)

Nose: Rich nose! Mahogany furniture, brown sugar, fermented banana, mint freshness, sweet olives, fresh sawed oak, the expected petrol and diesel, plums. After a few minutes it’s getting sweeter with sweet oak extracts, caramel, some burnt wood and eventually perfume-y – balanced and fun! With a few drops of water it’s lively with gentler oakiness. Continue reading →

Today we have another Caroni Rum review. Following the 1998 19 Year Old reviewed yesterday, now we have a 1998 20 Year Old Caroni Rum bottled by The Duchess (which I reviewed their Belize rum a few weeks ago and loved it). Like the 19 Year Old, it was mostly aged on the continent and not at the Caribbeans. This is cask #19 that yielded 288 bottles.

Yesterday we had cask #6 and today it’s #19 so I’m wondering if it’s the same distillate batch or an altogether different distillate. There’s one major difference between those casks and it’s the strength. This 20 Year Old was bottled at a very high strength of 64.6%. Can we brave it neat?

Caroni Rum 20 Year Old (1998-2018) The Duchess (64.6%, €195,00)

Nose: Sweet brown sugar, quite hard to nose with that ABV but after letting it rest in the glass for a few minutes there’s also toasted wood, plastical sweetness. Have to add some water and then it’s magical: there’s finally complexity and depth (not on Mariana Trench level tho), far less plastic relaxed sweetness, lots of brown and demerara sugar, crushed blueberry and cranberries, perfumey edge.

Palate: Sweet, tar, oily, wet sandy beach, a bit of plastic, a touch of black olives, pepper, oak spices. With water: relaxed, more fruit and berries, sugar sweetness, tar, oils and engine metal parts, black olives.

Finish: Medium long length, lingering sweet sugar and red fruit paste.

Thoughts: That’s a great Caroni once you add a few drops of water. It’s too though neat but with water it’s far more balanced and showing out all great fruitiness and subtle Caroni characteristics. Great stuff Nils!

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. Continue reading →