It’s a personal opinion of mine that one of the (many) reasons that rum don’t get no respect — especially from people who have grown up with the unshakeable conviction that the summit of distilled spirits is an uber-aged single malt — is that whiskies have no top-tier young guns. The very idea that a completely unaged whisky could be seen as a ninety-point buck is unthinkable, and all other spirits are tarred with this assumption. Yet in rums, it’s not only possible, but increasingly common. Young rums, whether completely unaged or just touched with a brief brush of the barrel, can really be something hellishly good.
If you doubt this possibly heretical opinion of mine (and you are, of course, welcome to do so), permit me to present the rum barely out of diapers released by Colours of Rum, the indie bottling arm of Wealth Solutions out of Poland (yes, Poland). I’ve been pretty impressed with many of their selections, and am still keeping my wallet squared away for their 1983 41YO Jamaican… and people, this apparently straightforward 2YO rum from Hampden makes a strong case for my contention that age really is just a number — and I don’t say that just because I’m tottering towards my own expiry date.
Consider the brief production stats. Molasses based, no surprise. Dunder and muck pits to boost the flavour profile. Hampden Estate out of Jamaica and pot still, always a sign we’re dealing with something serious. Two years of continental ageing. High Ester rum, with a marque of <>H (“Diamond-H”). 900-1000 g/hlpa. 61.7% ABV. 216 bottle outturn. Do we need more? I suggest, not really.
To call the nose of this rum “kinetic” might be to understate the matter: it arrives with the force of a hard-thrown t-rex, growling and boiling and clawing its way out the bottle in a fashion that can only be described as rabid. It skewers the nose with crisp, sharp, sweet acetones, lemon flavoured bubble gum, wood sap, pencil shavings and wet hay. It’s intense as hell, a Perrault amplifier dialled up to “11”, and the aromas don’t stop there, oh no – they expand into some mad uncharted space on the map where all that is written is “Here theyre be tygers.” Sugar water, lemon meringue pie, strawberries, vanilla, thick varnish and furniture polish, olives, brine… whew! This is a nose that doesn’t stop giving, ever.
What’s impressive here, is also that the palate is equally feral, taking up the brutally massive mantle of that insane nose, and running with it. All the hits are played: the rubber of three Batman suits and a melting LP, glue, pencil shavings, toner ink (I swear, I am not making this sh*t up), enough brine to float an ocean liner, plus some sharp red licorice. It pauses for a moment and you relax, think it’s all over, have a gulp of water to calm down … and then take another sip. That’s when the secondary stuff detonates: strawberries, rotten oranges, mangoes, pineapples, some faintly rotting meat soaked in red vinegar, olives, more brine. It shouldn’t work, yet somehow it does, and even the finish, sharp as a freshly stropped razor and twice as glittering, with many of the same fruit / hogo-derived flavours, is remarkably well controlled for the strength, adding nothing new, just slowly providing a surprisingly sedate denouement that finishes the thing off in fine easy style.
In short? It’s a really fine rum.
Maybe it’s just me, but the Hampden releases – Great House, Endemic Birds, Velier releases, 8-marks, indie bottlings, and so on – have become so prevalent in the primary and secondary markets, that the distillery almost seems to be becoming a Jamaican standard all on its own, just like Worthy Park is, or Long Pond. I’m not suggesting that anyone can try a rum from their stable and instantly know it’s a Hampden (though surely there are many who can). It’s just that once you’ve tried a few, it’s like your preference for that kind of profile really does take something of a major shift away from lukewarm, barely-out-of-diapers, made-for-all, cheap mass-market tipple. This rum exemplifies that theory, to my way of thinking.
Because when that happens, when you try something so young, so good, so memorable – it’s hard to go back to more common fare. And that in turn suggests that the opinion mentioned in my opening remarks – that these aren’t considered “serious” rums — is a preconception we must move away from. And that the whole premise of disdaining each and every sub-five-year-old or unaged rum on some kind of general principle really just betrays a need for more of us to broaden our horizons little by little — about what kinds of spirits generally and rums in particular, deserve to be taken seriously. This, for sure, is one rum that shows why that notion is absolutely true.
(#1154)(91/100) ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
Other notes
- YouTube video review link TBA
- Whiskyfun, who also scored it 91 points, remarked that it’s a 246-bottle outturn, but my research shows it is 216, which is what is on the label.