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Chairman's Reserve 15 Year Master's Selection Cask Strength Rum

$96.50
Like many rum producing islands in the Caribbean, St. Lucia has only one distillery, St. Lucia Distillers, most known for their Chairman's Reserve line, a blend of column and pot distillate. The jewels of their stock though, the uncut, well aged, cask strength rums, were only available through independent bottlers, and sparingly at that. In the last couple of years though, we have managed to source a couple stellar barrels through the distillery's single cask program.

Each year we've sampled through a variety of barrels, wishing we could snap them all up. We first fell in love with a 13 year old rum from their Vendome pot still, which showcased everything we love about wild pot still rum. Next up was a barrel of their heavy bodied coffey still rum, aged 11 years and utterly distinct from any other column distillate we've tried. This year there were yet again a lot of great barrels on offer, but we ended up going back to another Vendome beauty. The allure of that magic still is just too great.

Aged over 15 years at the distillery, this is our biggest and boldest selection yet - along with the hefty age statement, it clocks in at 61.3% abv. Luckily, with Chairman's, that translates not to aggressive heat, but intense and concentrated flavor, especially having been aged entirely in the tropics.

On the nose, there is sweet brown sugar, molasses, tree sap, vanilla, cake frosting, alpine forest, almond, and grapefruit zest. The palate opens sweet, with vanilla, prunes, and allspice up front. Salted toffee follows behind, with rich oak spice, cardamom, slightly bitter tannin, and plum and peach sweetness. It's a dry rum by any measure, but certainly on the sweeter side of ex-bourbon aged pot still rums. With 15 years of tropical aging, you can risk bitterness and over-extraction of the wood, but here there is only richness and depth, with a beautifully integrated oak tannin to balance it out. It's a big rum - and untamed, but let it show you its world and we promise you'll be as enchanted as we are.

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