The Duchess - Barbados (Foursquare Distillery) - 13 yo - 59% abv.
Updated: Dec 27, 2018
Rum-Review-A-Day: Day 13 - The Duchess - Barbados (Foursquare Distillery) - 13 yo - 59% abv.
The newest of the releases from the Netherlands-based bottler The Duchess, this time from the Foursquare Distillery in Barbados. The rum was distilled in 2005 and was tropically aged for 11 year in ex-bourbon barrels before being shipped and aged for an additional 2 years continentally. It was bottled in 2018 at cask strength of 59% abv. and yielded 294 bottles.
On the nose this one starts with sweet bourbon wood up front. The vanilla, burnt butter and caramel tones are lush yet not overpowering and delightfully unsweet! The oak is both fresh and dusty at the same time. Think new barrels arriving at an old ageing warehouse. The toasted notes also come through quite nicely, giving a slight charred smell that meshes together with dark cocoa beans. Glue, wet varnish, nail polish and petrol - there is definitely some factory-floor funk going on here and I love it. The fruits are there, but are definitely not the major players. Bruised/pressed red apples. Prunes, raisins and apricots. Also a bit of nuttiness. Overall I’m going with roasted hazelnuts and butter pecan ice cream with a sprinkle of fresh oak and pine saw dust.
On the palate, I’m back to the factory-floor funk. Petrol and nail polish. Rounded off nicely with the oak and vanilla. The fruits are coming through more on the palate for me, with apples and pears being dominant, followed by a slightly oxidised port wine character. Orange peel and cloves. Cinnamon and marzipan. Black pepper. A hint of something green…more pine/spruce green than bell pepper/grassy green. All together these notes give the rum a fairly spicy feel, which is of course strengthened by the 59% abv., and underneath all of this there is a soothing maple-syrup like sweetness, without actually being sweet.
Mouth feel is oily and hot at the same time. It coats your mouth in a fiery flavour that is long lived and leaves you with a wonderful mix of petrol, oak and sweet orange peel. I must say that this rum has a certain “funk” to it that I wasn’t expecting from Barbados/Foursquare, and I liked it VERY MUCH.
More rum like this would make me a happy man.
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