Color: Almost clear with a hint of pale straw color. Thin but persistent legs.
Nose: Underripe peaches and apricots. Fresh green herbs, rosemary and eucalyptus leaves. Apple skin, gas burner (bunsen burner) and band-aids. Oddly it noses like a very young lightly peated whisky. I am letting it air a little bit. Now I can get some funk, bitter molasses and buckskin...
Palate: First impression is more like a young grain whisky or maybe cask matured genever. Are we really sure that it is a rum..? Very malty and grainy notes are confusing. If you really pay attention you get the molasses towards the end of the palate but is more like a burnt sugar or brown sugar note in a whisky than a rum. If you allow it to air it opens up more: Menthol mouthwash, pine needles and young alcohol.
Finish: Long and sizzling at the top of your tongue. Fresh lemon juice and white pepper.
Overall: Very interesting spirit... I wouldn't call it as a rum in a blind tasting. The best I could come up with would be a very young Scotch whisky with loads of rum-like notes but probably not a rum. Hard to believe that it is a molasses based spirit... I am utterly confused but I also liked it a lot. I wonder how it would taste like if it was aging in a more active cask. At the end it's not a sipper for my two cents... Maybe out of curiosity you would sip it for a couple of times but then the right way to benefit from its qualities would be to mix it with something. It would make a killer highball with coke or with a strong ginger beer... Thanks to Josh Hodas for the sample.
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