I was watching some episodes of Parts Unknown the day I started writing this review. I’ve always had a soft spot for Anthony Bourdain ever since I saw my 1st No Reservations episode more than a decade ago. Hearing Tony makes it easy for me to invoke my more sentimental side. He was my red pill for food. He made street food look more enticing. He encouraged me to be more curious. It’s safe to say, the curiosity he invoked in me, lead to my eventual curiosity about booze. While, I’m being sentimental mood, I guess it’s a good time to talk about a rum that rewarded my curiosity. I noticed that the rum reviews need to catch up to the amount of whisky reviews so I think this would be the perfect 1st rum review for me to submit. 

I call this Habitation Velier Port Mourant White my red pill for spirits because this made me realize what the raw material, fermentation and stills alone can do! Not just for rum but for all spirits. This UN-AGED rum blew my mind. This was like me having my 1st taste of Matsusaka beef or that 1st ever serving of an aged otoro sashimi with the right amount of soy sauce and wasabi. It made me stare and silently with complete disregard of what I was staring at. My mouth gaping and me contemplating how much I’ve missing out on and how much I’ve been wrong about spirits this whole time.

Being initially a whisk(e)y geek offered very little opportunities to try new makes. I assume you’d have to be Serge or Dave Broom level to get access to the distilleries’ new makes. Thus most of us have no idea what new makes are like. I guess it’s safe to say we are conditioned to believe that the new makes/distillates have to heavily rely on the casks to attain flavor. Oh boy, I was so glad to be wrong. 

I bought this rum back in 2017 when I was just starting to geek out on rum and was introduced to Velier through the various online FB rum groups. I should point out that I’ve been dabbling into rum, apparently mostly sweetened rum,  a year before this. Trying more accessible aged rum like Ron Zacapa 23, Diplomaticos, Havana Clubs and El Dorados. Knowing close to nothing about fermentation and distillation back then, all I could ask myself was how much magic casks can do to make such varied spirits despite most of them being aged in ex-bourbon casks. Trying this WHITE rum made me wonder how an un-aged rum had so much flavor. (I’m trying to avoid using “white rum” here because 1. The rum color classification is lazy BS by the big boys and 2. Some “white” rum are aged). I always thought all whites spirits taste like vodka. Because up until this point, the only white non-flavored white spirits I’ve had was Bacardi Carta Blanca and vodka. Barcardi Carta Blanca tastes very neutral and tastes very close to vodka. Thanks to rum personalities like Richard Seale of Foursquare, Maggie Campbell of Privateer and Matt Pietrek, I found out later on that the length of fermentation, type of yeast, type of still heavily affects the character of the distillate. Oh how deep I went into the rabbit hole. Geeking out to the point where I could understand what I could despite being a dimwit in chemistry and not having a distilling outfit. TLDR conclusions like:

Longer fermentation times leading to more esters leading to more flavors.
Yeast meant for turbo charging fermentation for higher abvs and lesser time aka efficiency vs yeast that take its time but yield a more flavorful mash.
Pot stills (Batch distilling) vs Traditional Column stills (continuous distillation) which can also do batch distilling vs Multi column stills (continuous distillation) 

That is when I began looking at the whisk(e)y industry with more disappointment. Why not try other grains for a different result in fermentation and distillation? Why not try using less turbo charging yeast? Why not try wild fermentation? Is it all just about the numbers? I began to ask more about each distillery’s fermentation time and kind of grain they use most of the time.

Whisk(e)y was my Matrix. The rum geeks who helped me geek out are my Morpheus.

Rum Review: Habitation Velier Port Mourant White Guyana Pure Single Rum, 59% ABV

Purchased in: La Maison Du Whisky Singapore. About $200 SGD (if memory serves me well)

ABV: 59%

Age: un-aged

Still type: Port Mourant wooden double retort pot still

Style of rum: Pure Single Rum (pure for all pot still, single for coming from 1 distillery)

Tasting Notes

Color: Clear

Nose: An initial dry sensation of nutmeg, cherry syrup, dark chocolate, coffee candy and hints of leather. Followed by hints of lime peel, phosphorus sulfides and burnt orange. Imagine having a Black Forest cake in front of you waiting to be pounced on. 

Taste: Very similar to the nose. Lots of nutmeg, cherries and dark chocolate. Followed by burnt citrus peels, hints of cappuccino and cinnamon. This really makes me think I’m having a Black Forest cake with extras on the side. 

Conclusion

A very wonderful sipping rum despite being bottled at 59% and unaged.

This rum really opened my eyes to how much I’ve misunderstood spirits. This made me see how varied distilling can be. 

The friends who have tried this didn’t know what to make of it initially. I’m guessing because it’s their 1st time to try a funky estery rum like this. When they got to try this on a different day, they could make sense of it more. I’m guessing their palates got to adjust.

Sadly, this is a limited run distilled in The Diamond Distillery in Guyana bottled by Velier’s Independent bottler arm Habitation Velier.

Score: 8/10

Lead image courtesy of John Go.