Image courtesy of whisky-maniac.de

Background: another of those interesting bottles I get to sample from my ever-generous rum chat group. This is one of the few (two?) rums bottled by this hard-to-pronounce IB, which typically does whisky (Scotch) bottlings. A single cask release, though I could not find any information regarding cask type and year of distillation. Can this enigmatic IB stand up to the OBs?

Nose: original-flavoured Mentos; baked alaska; butter cake; brioche; Crêpes Suzette; Luxardo cherries; a sweet-savoury note evocative of Marmite chicken and sweet and sour pork; simple syrup; a fresh coat of paint; coconut shavings, coconut milk and sweets derivative of them, e.g. Peranakan-style rainbow kueh lapis; beneath these tantalising notes lies a core of gasoline and engine grease.

Palate: brown sugar fatt gou; coconut shavings dipped in brown sugar syrup, almost an ondeh-ondeh; butter cake; Hong-Kong-style egg tart, with that eggy and flaky shortcrust; milk custard; some dark fruits and chocolate, like a blackforest cake.

Finish: there is a flash of that savoury Foursquare pot still funk, in the form of fried animal fat, inadvertently drizzled over all the preceding dessert-y notes; then more butter, or margarine; Crêpes Suzette with added orange peel; smoked cling wrap; an aftertaste of charred wood, cream cheese and lightly salted lassi.

Conclusion: unencumbered by funk, the sweet notes here are more comprehensive and precise than that of Plenipotenziario. I am impressed by its purity and its doggedness to be a good dessert dram, yet part of me cannot help but feel a little bored by the experience. I am sure the more ardent fans of Foursquare will appreciate this more than me, but to me this is merely very good.

Score (assuming a normal distribution with mean 50): 81/100

Image Courtesy of u/zoorado. 

u/zoorado