Neisson is located near Saint-Pierre, Martinique, at the foot of Mount Pelee, a volcano whose last great eruption in 1902 almost wiped out the entire island. Today, the volcano provides a unique terroir to the sugar cane grown on its volcanic clay soil. 

But let's first take a quick look into Neisson. The distillery is currently in the hands of the third generation of the family who established the distillery, and remains one of the few independent family-run distilleries on the island, and is also one of the smallest, contributing only 2% to the island's rum output.

Gregory Vernant-Neisson, who currently runs Neisson. (Image Source: Neisson)

The distillery is operated by Gregory Vernant-Neisson, grandson of the distillery's co-founder (it was founded by two brothers), and when he had taken over the distillery, it was apparently in poor working condition and took quite some refurbishment, and as such rum stocks remained low for quite awhile.

Martinique itself is fairly unique - it is the only country with a country of origin AOC designation outside of France. This means that some of the country's products - such as rum, or rather rhum agricole - has to be produced in accordance with AOC requirements, which protects the country's reputation and is a form of quality assurance with regards to such products.

(Image Source: Tourcrib)

For the rhum agricole category, this means parameters such as fermentation only lasting for up to 5 days, which nonetheless for rhum agricole (rum made with sugar cane juice) is already fairly long.

The rum is fermented by Gregory himself, and is distilled using a copper Savalle column distillation still, before being left to rest in stainless steel tanks, after which unaged expressions are bottled, and the rest are filled into American or French oak casks for ageing. This is a noteworthy point to consider as most rums are matured in ex-Bourbon or ex-Cognac casks, rather than new oak casks in the case of Neisson.

The Creole Savalle Column Still used by Neisson. (Image Source: Neisson)

The distillery has also more recently moved into producing organic rums so as to better reflect the unique Martinique terroir.

Today, we'll be trying a flight of Neisson's Profil series, which explores the effect of different oak barrel toasting profiles on Neisson's rums. This will include Profil 62, Profil 105 and Profil 107 Bio - each corresponding to a different profile of toast level for the barrel used to age the rums. It might be worth noting that Profils 105 and 107 come in both standard and bio (organic) versions. In this flight I've swapped out the Profil 107 standard expression for the organic version, as I've heard particularly good things about it.

Let's go!

Neisson Profil 62, 49.2% ABV - Review

As the name suggests, this was aged in casks toasted to a proprietary Profile 62. It was matured in 225 litre American oak casks for 12 months and is the result of 4 such casks being blended together.

To be clear, we don't actually know what Profile 62 is or the details of the toasting, but it's one of the toasting profiles created by the cooperage used in partnership with Neisson.

This one is specially bottled for spirits retailer La Maison du Whisky.

Color: Amber

Aroma: Gentle aromatic white florals - vanilla, lilies, plumerias. Mixed with the classic agricole grassiness, sea coconut, and cane juice. The aromas are quite rich, with more on desiccated coconut, light spices of nutmeg, clove, anise. Other notes of grass jelly, cane juice, and spiced Christmas pudding or perhaps a custard pudding.

Taste: More cane juice! Really aromatic, even on the palate - a pronounced grassiness mixed with spiced honey, butterscotch, with a nice hefty texture and a light earthy medicinal note of traditional Chinese medicine - think a Chinese medical hall. The herbalness is lightly sweet and medicinal with more on ginseng and Pei Pa Kao (a popular ivy leaf and honey cough syrup), only a very slight bitterness. Guilinggao (Tortoise Jelly - actually made of Chinese herbs like ginseng), a sense of ephemeral, more heady florals and peppermint.

Finish: Clean, long, and mostly a softer continuation of the palate's flavors - herbal jelly, honey, ginseng, agricole grassiness, sea coconut, more ivy leaf medicinal herbal notes. It ends with a slight tidbit of salinity and brine, and a light umami bitterness of bresaola or air dried meats.

My Thoughts

Surprisingly very good! I don't know why I was expecting to think otherwise, I suppose the lack of representation and ubiquity makes it still somewhat esoteric and poorly understood, in Asia at least. But yes, this was fantastic stuff - the combination of its medium heavy profile, aromatic grassy herbal notes, alittle more herbal than most rhum agricoles, in fact, made it a very sensual experience. Maybe something about it resonates with the Asian palate - think Chinese traditional deserts such as Cheng Tng or Chrysanthemum tea. 

Neisson Profil 105, 54.2% ABV - Review

This one comes from Profil 105 - using second-fill ex-Bourbon barrels, as well as new oak casks for its maturation.

As mentioned, the Profil number itself doesn't really stand for anything aside from it corresponding to a unique, specific, and more importantly, unknown, barrel toasting profile that the cooperage has done for Neisson. 

So whether it's 62 or 105, is really no indicator of anything to do with its quality, aside from that this is a significant step up in terms of ABV level compared to the 62 we just had. 

Color: Light Amber

Aroma: Heady violets - this seems to be a thing. And then strangely... nothing else?

Giving it some time, alittle more classic agricole grassy and sea coconut notes appear, but aside from which, surprisingly muted.

Taste: Let's hope there's more on the palate.

Spiced honey, this one is a little more heavy weight, with a more apparent umami-savory dimension, almost coastal, lightly salted nuts. And then sea coconut, ginseng, camphor - leaning more medicinal.

Finish: Short. Light honey and sea coconut, and then more medicinal again.

My Thoughts

This one was about as surprising as the 62. While that one was more a pleasant surprise, this one was more of a disappointment, quite frankly. It's mild and muted across the tasting, with nothing much in the way of complexity, and very little expressiveness.

It mostly felt like a flat version of the 62, albeit more hefty on the palate, perhaps this was meant to be more textural? I'm not catching the punchline.

Neisson Profil 107 Bio, 53.8% ABV

Last one, and also the one I've heard the most about - good things across the board.

It's worth noting that there is a Profil 107 standard expression (as opposed to the Bio version that I'm reviewing) that I've skipped as the reviews for the 107 Bio was better, and in fact the very reason for this Neisson flight.  

The Bio expression marks the distillery's 2013 shift towards organic farming, the hope of which is that this would allow the rums to showcase more of the unique local terroir. 

The Profil 107 itself sees the rum aged in ex-Bourbon barrels for 15 months before being further aged in 225 litre barrels that have been newly toasted. Like the 105, the 107 is bottled at a similar proof, as such, it is of substantially high proof than the 62.

Color: Straw

Aroma: Vanilla, more vanilla cream custard, with light spices. Classic agricole grassiness, sea coconut, even more bright now, with lavender and fresh laundry. Over time it opens up more, big aromatic mandarin flowers - vanilla and citrus. And then a mustiness of a wooden cupboard or maybe a big attic or hall - lacquer and agarwood.

Taste: Honeyed, hefty waxiness, a real velvety texture. Then spices, sea coconut jelly, tending towards a light medicinal bitter touch. Quite umami and savory - miso paste.

Finish: Honey but this quickly turns into a more oaky astringency and medicinal bitterness.

My Thoughts

This one is probably the most balanced of the lot - a medium texture, a medium aromatic profile. It's definitely a good bit richer and of more depth than the two previous expressions. But at the same time, you could get a sense that while it was promising, it could really have delivered a whole lot more, but somehow was held back. 

It was off to a good start but somehow gassed out at the palate, which was abit unfortunate, I kind of got a sense that this might have done alittle too much time in an overly active cask as it got quite astringent and oaky. Perhaps a lighter profile necessitates less time in the cask lest it gets overpowered. Just my two cents.

Overall

This was probably my first proper experience with Neisson. I've had them in the past but never really as a flight or had the ability to sit down and singularly focus on the distillery's produce. I should say I was quite pleasantly surprised by them, the quality across the board was good, that much is certain. You could tell they were well-made rhum agricoles, albeit some more expressive and some less - yet, all of them had good integration and a good hefty body.

Across the Profils, I've come to find three core flavors that seem to be Neisson's house style - 1. Herbal/Medicinal, 2. Floral, and 3. Agricole Grassiness/Sea Coconut.

When I put the three Profils together, I find that 62 is the most heavy on florals and agricole notes, 107 is in the middle of the three, and 105 leans the most towards the herbal/medicinal side. I found 62 the most expressive as such, while 105 was the least expressive, and 107 was right smack in the middle.

In terms of body, 62 was the lightest, 105 the heaviest, and again, 107 was right in the middle.

As such, the outstanding piece for me was the Profil 62 which I found to be the most expressive and suited to my palate, which generally prefers aromatic, sweeter, more floral notes, whereas the Profil 105 was the least to my preference as it was much more muted and tended towards the more herbal/medicinal notes. Profil 107 was probably the most balanced, which I suspect is why it was so strongly recommended.

I sound like such a pacifist, but I think given the point of the series, to see the effects of different toasting profiles, I hesitate to say which is best, rather it would seem more reasonable to say which I preferred most. To which Profil 62 was really outstanding for me, but do have a go at it and let me know what you think.

I'm definitely a believer in Neisson after this tasting, and I'm quite keen to explore their ranges more. Expect more Neisson reviews.

Kanpai!

@111hotpot