The next bottle in our tasting was named The Cane, and no surprises here that it was a Jamaican rum from 2008 bottled by @preciousliquors for @distinctivespirits. To be more exact though, this was a selected blend of column and pot still distillates from a couple of Jamaican distilleries, specifically:

• 2005 Long Pond, pot still
• 2007 Monymusk, column and pot still
• 2005 New Yarmouth, pot still
• 2008 Worthy Park, pot still

As you can tell, most of these distillates are older than the 14 years indicated, and were blended in various casks before being shipped to Main Rum company, and very likely continentally aged for most of its time. It was then bottled in 2022 at cask strength of 57.1% abv, and an outturn of 265 bottles. Though there have been quite a number of these 2008 Jamaican rum blends bottled by various independent bottlers, I believe I counted at least eight different ones, but this would only be my second, having tasted a sister cask from The Colours of Rum just a couple of months back.

Now on the nose it was clearly in the high ester category, filled with intensity and pungency, and as you would expect, a whole lot of funk, varnish, and those really crude notes of burnt plastic. But as it is left to breath for a bit, the lighter, fruitier notes revealed themselves, particularly those of cantaloupe that I so often found in high ester Jamaicans rums, and even wafts of sweet corn.

The palate was rather spritely, a bit sharp in its texture, or as some would say high pitched. Thankfully for me, it fared much softer than the nose was, gentler, light and sweet vanilla at the onset, but as it developed it got bolder, more intense, and I started to get a tinge of bitterness, similar to those burnt plastic notes that was on the nose. Yet those notes disappeared rather quickly as it moved into the finish, though the intensity and funk remained, leaving a long finish dominated by rubber and varnish.

This rum will undoubtedly speak to the high ester junkies out there, even when compared to the one bottled by The Colours of Rum. While equally funky on the nose, this one by Precious liquors has its intensity and funk dialled up a notch on the palate, and trust me when I say those notes of rubber and varnish are going to stay with you for quite a bit.

Image Courtesy of @weixiang_liu