Purchased on 22nd November 2022 from Spiritly

By the time I gained any real awareness of the Caroni distillery, the chance to buy a bottle at what a yorkshireman would consider a reasonable price had well and truly passed. I had tried Caroni rum as part of a blend in rums such as Black Tot’s 50th Anniversary bottling but never as a straight drink. I became determined to buy a bottle of this section of rum history and after listening to Steffen Mayer’s appearance on The Rumcast I decided on this bottling as one which was suggested to be good value for money (all things being relative). I also found this site which had a 10% offer for new customers although I have since found that I may have got a better deal on Rum Auctioneer.

There is a lot written about the Caroni distillery and if you’re reading this then you probably already have a fair understanding of it’s history. If not then I would definitely recommend the above mentioned podcast, Mayer has also written a book on the subject. My thoughts on Caroni is that it is Juice WRLD of distilleries in the way that it wasn’t really revered for it’s work until after it’s death. It strikes me as a distillery which was pretty badly run, the unique oily/petrol taste is rumoured to come from the distillery refusing to stop production while cleaning it’s equipment. The bonus of their lack of organisation is that after the distillery had closed it was found to have a massive amount of stock in rum barrels some which had been laying there aging for an incredible amount of time. These barrels have since been bought up by a variety of different bottlers, the most prominent being Velier.

Prior to trying this drink I was a little sceptical on how great Caroni rum actually was and how much of the furore was down to a great marketing campaign by Velier and the scarcity of rum from a distillery which is now closed. My scepticism even lead towards wondering how scarce this rum actually is at this moment in time and whether it was more of a manufactured scarcity in the mould of De Beers diamonds. I understand that one day all of it will be gone but new bottlings are still being released every year and apparently there was an awful lot of barrels in that warehouse.

All of this aside, let’s get to the actual drink. The presentation of the bottle and box are quirky and while they are not one of my favourite Velier design ideas, it is fitting for the 100th Anniversary theme. In the glass it has a beautiful dark hue and almost has the look of a navy rum all on it’s own. It looks every day of the 18 years of aging and it already a fair step on the way to convincing me that I am about to drink something about special and not just an overhyped money spinner. The nose on the rum is distinctive and can be related back to what I have been able to pick out from certain blended rums. For want of a better way to phrase it, it smells a bit dirty, but in a good way. After all of this the neck pour was a little underwhelming, I had given it time to breathe and it’s not that I wasn’t getting anything from it but I wasn’t getting much. I poured 100ml into a bottle for my retirement stash, 30ml into a bottle for my friend’s housewarming gift and put it back on the shelf for a week. A week later I got much more from it, there is undeniably a distinctive note which people have described as akin to fossil fuels but I would categorise more as medicinal. By this I mean relating to a badly mixed folk cure elixir, definitely not Calpol. I feel like I have picked up some similarities to Angostura in there which I presume may be down to terroir or location of aging or maybe my mind just fabricated this connection. This is a really interesting drink and one which is quite moreish. I feel like I will get more from it each time I decide to pour some so this may be added to in the future. Although for now I am resisting the temptation and have re-gassed and sealed the bottle in the hope of keeping it available for many years to come.

Purchased 21st February 2023 from Rum Auctioneer for £70.00 (excluding fees and postage)

I am very much in the business of adding on sample sized bottles to my orders with the larger spirits retailers in order to reach the free shipping fresh hold. Many of these prove to be underwhelming and vindicate my original decision not the buy the whole bottle. This is with two notable exceptions; the SBS Jamaica 2019 PX Cask and Monymusk MBS 2010 9 Year Old. Ever since trying this sample I have been on the look out for a full sized bottle and finally managed to snag one on Rum Auctioneer for a price which I believe was a little under the RRP back when it was readily available.

A great and all encompassing explanation of the distillery can be found here but in short, Monymusk is the original name for the Clarendon distillery who sells the majority of it’s rum under the Clarendon name to bulk buyers to add sugar and spice and everything Captain Morgan to then resell under their brand. Around 10% of the rum they produce is sold as Monymusk but I believe the majority is brought to market through the Plantation brand and they own a share in National Jamaica Distillers. Velier bought up the rum for this particular bottling so this was my chance to buy a bottle which had paid less out to Ferrand and co.

This is a column still rum which has been categorised into the MBS marque which is the lighter, lower ester of the two marques offered by this distillery. My general experience and enjoyment of Jamaican rums has been of medium to high ester pot still rums so this is of interest to me. As I have mentioned before, I am not a big fan of rums being packaged in boxes and this box is particularly uninspiring. The bottle also follows a similar aesthetic but in the case of the bottle I think it works, looking classy and understated.

The nose and colour of this rum both follow along the understated theme set by the packaging. It is quite obviously a lower ester column still rum. The taste again is very subtle but in a way that leans more towards the classy bottle instead of the uninspiring box. Nothing jumps out at you but it has a refined taste and is very enjoyable to drink. It seems like the rum equivalent of a well aged single malt, the kind you’d pay over the odds for to wash down a meal at a fancy restaurant and really feel like you’re living the high life.

Speaking of paying over the odds, I did think that the rrp was maybe a little expensive for a 4660 bottle 9 year old but the taste definitely justifies the price, which is ultimately what counts. There is also the fact that these bottles have sold out (in the UK at least) so I guess the market has decided that it was priced well. Maybe I’ve just been spoilt by the Foursquare ECS pricing which is a poor yardstick to use for comparison. I feel like this isn’t a rum that you’d start a collection with but it does feel like a marker that I’ve reached, especially after waiting all that time since trying the sample bottle. I have also just acquired a bottle of the Cambridge 2010 STCE, hopefully next up will be a bottle of the Vale Royal to complete the set, reviews on these to follow.