Mount Gay XO Extra Old Rum

Nose: Fresh aromatic oak, vanilla, cinnamon and caramel. Smell it deeply and there's a whiff of ethanol. Orange peel in the background and over-ripe tropical fruit as it opens in the glass. It’s like a bourbon that sold the farm, retired to the tropics and went native. Palate: Sweet arrival but with heft. There is some hot cinnamon and clove spice together with bitter orange peel and oak tannin at the start, but it settles down into dark fruity notes, mocha coffee and tobacco. The texture is full and pleasantly dry rather than cloying. Finish: Long, sharp and spicy, with barrel notes and a long trail of vanilla in the back of the palate. The only overt note that declares emphatically this is rum is a touch of brown sugar or molasses in the finale. A nicely balanced Bajan rum that is good value for money. You could slip this into a whiskey tasting session and I bet some people would think, at least initially, that it was a rye-heavy bourbon with a slightly unusual profile. It’s fragrant and sweet on the nose with wood presentation that many whiskey (and whisky) distillers would love to attain. I don’t know whether Mount Gay add any sweetening, but if they do it is moderate and appropriate to the profile. This stands up to neat sipping but also works very well in cocktails or mixed drinks calling for a dark rum (it makes a killer Cuba Libre). "Good" : 84/100 (3.75 stars)