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.