Duchess Belize (Travellers Distillery) - 10 yo - 66.6% abv.
Updated: Dec 27, 2018
Rum-Review-A-Day: Day 8 - Duchess Belize (Travellers Distillery) - 10 yo - 66.6% abv.
Another independent bottling by Netherlands based The Duchess. This time they have selected a cask from the Travellers Distillery in Belize. This distillery has not been exporting rum for all that long, with their first released coming from around 2005. This specific bottling was distilled in 2007 and aged for 9 years in Belize before being shipped and re-casked continentally for an additional year. The rum was bottled in 2017, making it a 10 year old rum and was bottled at a mouth tingling 66.6% abv.
On the nose this rum is wood forward! Vanilla and a tonne of oak! But not only oak, also a bit of spruce/piny funk going on here, along with wet rotting leaves, damp soil and mushrooms. The nose keeps taking me back to my childhood in Canada, walking through the forests in late September searching for mushrooms to fry on the open fire. Crazy when a smell can trigger such vivid memories…Anyways, back to the rum! Going along with the evergreen forest, I also get hit with waves of freshly grated orange peel, cloves and fennel. All of this mixed together with glue, paint thinner and old spice aftershave. The nose of this beast is actually quite intriguing and nearly as hot as I was expecting!
On the palate this rum IS about as hot as I was expecting. The first flavour that jumps out at me is burnt/caramelised bananas. Sprinkle on some cloves, nutmeg and all spice and we’re getting close to a pretty decent wintery (and boozy) dessert! Vanilla and pepper. Spruce and very mild oak. There are definitely some citrus notes going on with the focus again being on orange zest mixed with herbal bitters. There is a certain sour/bitterness, similar to angostura bitters, that I pick up here but its not entirely unpleasant. Finally, the high alcohol levels give this rum a slight paint thinner feel, which actually works quite well in my mind with the spicy, earthy notes that go along with it.
The mouth feel is slightly thin, very dry and tingly! The finish is long and fades out through the orange peel leaving you with a creamy mushroom flavour that somehow comes out of nowhere.
Very interesting rum. Hard to wrap my head around it completely. But I would very much like to return to this one again.
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