Background: a mystery sample from /u/soberlytipsy. He told me it is a rum, and it is not from a place totally unfamiliar to me. Here, “a place” could either mean a territory, or a distillery -- I did not further clarify.

Nose: rather closed at first; burnt sugar; a woody top note that resembles a well-aged Martinique agricole, where the wood envelopes the grassiness of the distillate; with time, the top note becomes more savoury, and a little briny -- grilled salmon in teriyaki sauce; fresh nuts; cloves; assorted baking spices; a cognac-like profile of red and dark fruits; somewhat typical of cognac rancio, the base notes comprise spiced meat and salted nuts.

Palate: rather thin mouthfeel; I barely feel the alcohol burn -- this can’t be above 50% a.b.v.; the attack comes forth like a Foursquare, sweet, smooth and buttery; golden syrup; cherry-flavoured cough syrup; assorted sweet berries; raisins; grape soda; woody-grassy agricol-esque rancio; allspice; liquorice.

Finish: medium in length; raisin bread, maybe even a blackforest cake; an aftertaste of vanilla, raisins and grape soda.

Conclusion: a very easy-drinking pour that manages to not be boring. Kudos to the rancio for spicing things up. I think the rum is limited by its proof, which is likely the result of intentional reduction. All in all, the nose is pretty good, but I wish the palate could hit (much) harder.

Score (assuming a normal distribution with mean 50): 74/100

Guess: assuming it comes from a distillery of which product(s) I have tried, all signs point to Foursquare. The rancio made me think “cognac cask” at first, but it could also be some kind of fortified wine cask. Now, this is difficult without a list of all Foursquare releases to work with. I managed to cobble together a hodge-podge of references thanks to Google, and quickly narrowed down the candidates to three based on a.b.v. alone: Port Cask Finish (40%), Premise (46%) and Sagacity (48%). If I need to choose exactly one of them as my final guess, it would be Premise, for no reason other than it being right in the middle of the a.b.v. ordering (I have not tried any of them).

Reveal: Appleton 21

Comments: I literally LOL-ed at the reveal. This is embarrassing, how far off I was. In my defence, I have not had anything from Appleton. Okay, that is embarrassing too. I shall show myself out.

Image Courtesy of u/zoorado. 

u/zoorado