John Watlings Distillery out of the Bahamas, which was established on the Buena Vista estate in downtown Nassau in 2013, has a number of rums in their portfolio, few of which have excited any kind of splash. Pale, Amber, Buena Vista, Paradise (Sherry finish), and Single Barrel, and all except the last one are relatively young blends. They don’t say so outright – the website of the “distillery” is an exercise in frustrating obfuscation – but it’s reasonable to assume that they cater not to the international rum scene, but the Bahamas tourist and cruise ship trade.
The Amber, which is one of two rums from their stable I managed to try, is a 40% ABV blended product of uncertain provenance, aged for three years in ex-bourbon barrels onsite, according to their website, which provides exactly zero additional information. It is, therefore, a mixing rum with no pretensions to terroire, a fancy still, weird fermentation processes or anything that in our world might elevate it a bit beyond the bartender’s mixing glass. And none of this is surprising, since, like Banks DIH in Guyana, they don’t actually have a still or distil anything, but buy in young or unaged rum stock and then age and blend it on their premises.
This is where more information rather than less would be useful. It was suggested that their single barrel edition hailed from Worthy Park (a selling point if there ever was one), but no data attends to the Amber. We are forced to deal with it sight unseen then, and we can throw terroire and production out the window since to all intents and purposes we start from the ageing and blending process of whatever it is that they threw into their barrels.
That, alas, does not inspire. When nosed, the rum suggests a straight simplicity of wooden tannins, coffee grounds and some smoke, with caramel, vanilla and toffee, with the faintest hint of citrus and coconut shavings. There’s not a whole lot more to go on here. That’s enough for Government work, sure, but come on… haven’t we smelled this a hundred times before?
And taste-wise, it’s the same. Almost exactly the same. Light, almost sharp mouthfeel, slight tastes of wood and leather, some smoke, vanilla, toffee, caramel, faint coffee grounds, even fainter citrus, and if there are any coconut shavings on this go around, I couldn’t spot them. As is expected with a standard strength rum, the finish is quiet and faint and easy and adds literally nothing to the party – it’s here, and then a second later, it isn’t. A subdued whuff… and then a negligible poof.
So, with that brief tasting out of the way, how to sum up? Well… it’s a rum. It’s recognizable as such, tastes as such, and there’s little to disappoint if that’s all that one asks for – a taste, a quick drunk, a decent-enough mixing element. On that basis, you get what you came for. But for those who want something a little more exciting, something that might hopefully have channeled a master blender’s inner Mad Hatter (looking at you there, Oliver Chilton)… it’s uninspiring, it’s unchallenging, and we’ve had this kind of milquetoast standard profile since our rum babyhood. Yes, sure, it takes us to familiar places in our memories – but once there, we get no real comfort, and for sure we make no new discoveries.
(#1155)(74/100) ⭐⭐½
Company background
Founded in 2013 as an adjunct to the Buena Vista estate in Nassau (famed these days for having Casino Royale filming some scenes there), John Watlings “Distillery” — which is not a distillery — strikes me as very similar to Banks DIH in Guyana with a nod to St Nicholas Abbey. The former is a blender without a still, the latter a micro distillery in a scenic historical setting which makes decent rums.
From what I’m seeing and tasting, Watlings’s rums are something of a sideshow to add some rustic colour to their estate tours. It’s probably no accident that the actual production processes are given scant mention on the company website, and one has to delve deep and on to other touristy websites to understand that they are blenders with an ageing cellar – not distillers. The source of their distillate is kept a secret (of course it is), though one wonders in this day and age exactly why they bother, since those are selling points in their own right, sometimes.
I make these remarks not to diss the company — they have to make payroll like anyone else — but to express something of my dissatisfaction with the sort of “good ‘nuff” mentality that says they can make any old rum in any old way, add some local pirate-themed colour, and it’ll sell, which I see far too often from small rum making establishments that serve the island tourist trade rather than actually try to make something interesting. Is that fair? Maybe not, but it’s hard to escape the conclusion when one sees how little one has to go on when one tries to research anything about the rums themselves, and then tastes it to find so very little there.
Other notes
- YouTube video review link TBA
- There is a history behind the name of John Watling, who was a pirate (or buccaneer, take your pick). I have elected not to discuss that in this review in any depth, since I have a cordial dislike of pirates, peg legs and parrots when it comes to rum and its promotion. The story of the man is available on Wikipedia, for those who are interested.