Taste Testing Swell de Spirits' Trinidad TDL 2000 Private Garden 22 Year Old For Les Spiritueux du Clos des Millésimes
After a duo of rhum agricoles, the next bottle from Swell de Spirits at Hi Stranger bar featured a molasses-based rum from the island of Trinidad, and amongst one of the largest rum producers in the Caribbean - the Trinidad Distillers Limited, or TDL for short, a subsidiary and distilling arm of Angostura Holdings. While the Angostura brand traces its history back to 1825, its foray into rum distillation came more than a century after its founding, with its distillery built only in 1947.
Despite being a British colony at the time of its founding, TDL adopted the “Spanish-style” of molasses-based rum production — short, clean fermentations without the use of dunder and muck, column-still distillation, and the production of heavy and light rums for blending. The rumwonk’s article on the Age of Angostura is an informative read on TDL’s rum production process, beginning with a rather straightforward fermentation process using a proprietary yeast strain in temperature-controlled steel vats for 48 hours for the light rums, and a slightly extended period for the heavy ones to allow additional flavours to develop.
Distillation then happens on the two multi-column stills that were installed in 1985 and 1999 respectively. There is even a third multi-column still, the oldest of the three that was set up in 1975, but is seldom used for rum production today. TDL’s heavy rums are produced using only the first column coming off at 80% ABV, while the light rums pass through the entirety of the column set up, coming off the still at 95% ABV. The distillates are brought down to between 55 - 65% ABV and 75% ABV for the heavy and light rums respectively before being filled in ex-bourbon casks for ageing.
Don’t let the column-still distillation fool you though. In recent years, TDL has gained quite a reputation for delivering some particularly unique and complex single cask rums, particularly amongst the independent bottlers’ scene.
It should come as no surprise that Swell would release one too — a single cask from the year 2000 under the Private Garden series for Les Spiritueux du Clos des Millésimes that has been aged for 15 years in an ex-bourbon cask in Trinidad, and a further 7 in an ex-rum cask in the UK.
On the nose, there were traces of marshmallows, interlaced with a delicate citrus acidity, akin to freshly peeled tangerines. There was also a subtle earthiness, a tarriness reminiscent of the heavy column-distilled rum one might have tasted previously. Those industrial notes didn’t come across too pungent or intense, nowhere near that of a Caroni rum, yet it added another layer of complexity to the rum, with just the slightest tinge of the rotting fruits.
Now you might be wondering where those herbaceous or lychee notes were, as these have come to embody a great TDL rum. Well, they were undoubtedly present on the palate, sweet, ripe lychees, alongside freshly crushed basil leaves. The complexity was rather profound as I picked out further notes of rose water, candied toffee apples, even that sweet scent of play-doh, all of which stretched into that long finish, and only interrupted by that slight tarriness that popped up right at the end. A rather remarkable TDL bottling for Clos des Spiriteux.
Your occasional rum addict!
