Distilled in 2004 at the Fiji South Pacific Distillery, this pot still rum was completely tropically aged for 13 years before being bottled in Scotland in 2018, at a cask strength ABV of 58.5%, unchill-filtered and free of coloring and additives. From cask 18-1301R, only 100 bottles were pulled from the cask, each has been uniquely numbered.
This is big funk well aged, which is certainly a rarity, especially at cask strength and matured entirely in the tropics, which lends a fantastic concentration of flavor and richness. Ripe pineapple and classic, sweaty rum hogo sits alongside raisin, anise, nutmeg, pepper, and a light rubbery industrial note that brings to mind the wonderful pot still rums of St. Lucia as well as Trinidad's late, great Caroni Distillery, but all with a brightness of character more akin to Jamaica.
Valinch & Mallet select single casks as a matter of taste, an art: where a standard of perfection doesn't exist, rather creativity and personal taste drive the preference for one cask over another, imagining how the spirit will marry with the wood and develop once finally poured and sealed in the bottle. In a world of sometimes overwhelming wood influence, they always seek the true distillery character, and quality over quantity.
