jslaton09
Plantation Multi-island XO
Aged Rum — Caribbean, Multiple Countries
Reviewed
August 4, 2020 (edited September 28, 2020)
A very rare 5 for me. Not a big rum connoisseur but branching out from bourbons, scotch and mezcal.... WOW.
Single cask, 46.5%, matured in French wine cask, aged in bourbon then cognac, cask #1, bottle #111. Distilled at West Indies distillery long pond and Clarendon. This is the pick intended for Ticonderoga club in Atlanta that somehow ended up at Holeman & Finch bottleshop.
The nose is filled with vanilla, banana and heated raw sugar. Pineapple is present but less so. Oak finishes the nose
The palate is all kinds of vanilla, cream, apple, banana, burned sugars and caramel. It finishes with a heavy dose of allspice, cinnamon, anise and clove.
Finish is oily at first but quickly dries into a puckering spice.
Phenomenal liquid.
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@bigwhitemike Yeah, they're definitely more expensive than many other rums of similar age (see: Doorly's 12). Age-wise, they're about at scotch prices, but they taste much more mature than 12 YO scotch (IMHO) and the 2002 Trinidad remains one of my favorite spirits of all time at just $60.
@ContemplativeFox it does seem like a winner. I need to do better to keep my eyes on their vintage releases - they seem “pricey” until you compare to whiskies of similar stature then you realize just how affordable great rum still is.
@bigwhitemike Thanks for that context/history! From their website, it looks like they released this in 2017 and 2018. I wonder why they didn't in 2019 or 2020 though? It sounds like an exceptional bottle, like the 2002 Trinidad, so I hope they do it again :)
@ContemplativeFox if I had a guess, this is a new concept Mr. Gabriel was able to roll out after the West Indies distillery (Barbados) purchase, which came with their Jamaican holdings (1/3rd ownership stake in Clarendon & Long Pond) as part of the deal. The dates on these bottlings seem to jive with that timeline (maybe 2017?) to the best of my knowledge, so it seems like these releases may be a bit of a pet project celebrating the move from sourcing to having pick of the litter from your own high quality stock.
@ContemplativeFox thanks 😊
@jdriip Congrats on finding the 2017! The Arran finish sounds very interesting. looking forward to reading what you think :)
@cascode It's interesting that they've only done this multi island single barrel thing twice. It sounds like it's very good and the choice of barbados and Jamaica makes a lot of sense.
@jslaton09 the 2018 Multi-Island sounds amazing and I wish I could find a bottle. I hope the 2017 Multi-Island finished in peated Arran casks will be amazing too when I finally get around to sampling it.
@ContemplativeFox It's listed as a single cask special edition on their website https://www.plantationrum.com/plantation-single-cask-2018-multi-island-xo as the juice received 12 months finishing in a single Ferrand wine cask. I believe they produce several casks in parallel but each is bottled as a single-cask and distributed to a specific market. I can't recall ever having seen any of the Single Cask range out here.
Interesting find. I've never seen this one before, but Plantation's rums aged over a decade have been quite good in my experience.