Plantation Barbados 5 Year Rum

The Bottle: Fairly standard Plantation fare here, clear glass bottle with an old-timey label. The front clearly tells you where it's from and how old it is, the back has a wealth of knowledge about other aspects of the content's provenance. The one thing that I wasn't overly enthusiastic with was the faux-straw "binding" that came around it. I understand that it makes it look like a mobile tiki hut, but still. In the Glass: 24 karat gold. On the Nose: Butterscotch, brown sugar, bananas and baking spices. B, b, b, b.....Barbados...hey..... This is a very well-integrated, sweet and appealing nose. This is honestly what you hope that a good golden rum smells like. Taste: The arrival is quite sweet, carrying the brown sugar and baking spices with it. The development is all banana and butterscotch with the cinnamon and allspice notes running through it. The finish is very fruity and comes full-circle back to the brown sugar on the nose. The alcohol nip isn't terribly pronounced, and it leaves just the faintest touch of bitter on the tongue. I don't get as much vanilla influence as I would expect with 5 years in a bourbon cask, but I'm also not entire sure about the fill status on those. I doubt that they are first-fill, but second? Third? Hard to say. I do think that a lot of the flavor on the development comes from the Pierre Ferrand cognac casks that are used to finish the rum. I'm not sure how long the rum stays in there, probably only a few months, but those casks certainly leave their mark. The tasting notes that come on the bottle differ from mine in a lot of ways, but that's how tasting notes are. Plantation isn't telling me how my palate "ought" to taste it, but rather what this specific reviewer came away with. This is another winner from Plantation as far as I am concerned. Tasty, approachable, affordable, sippable. You could absolutely use this in a mixed drink that calls for a golden rum, but it fares just as nicely as a neat sipper too. I'm not sure how much (if any) additional sugar is added to the mix; but the dram appears none the worse for it if there is. Like the Stiggin's Pineapple, this could very well find itself as a fixture in my bar.