J. Bally is one of the more prominent rhum agricoles, most of which comes from either the islands of Martinique or Guadeloupe. Rhum agricoles themselves are already a more obscure subset of the broader rum-verse, and because of how they are made - of freshly pressed sugarcane juice - they offer a distinctive aromatic albeit typically less intense earthy grassy profile that is not in the hallowed group of ester-bombs that many have come to be hooked on.

Because they are more gentle and less in your face, they can sometimes be billed as being lesser or of lesser bang for buck versus the likes of rums from Jamaica, Trinidad and Guyana, which are funk bombs, burn your face off tar-like, or a bottomless pit of melted brown sugar - it's a classic story of the noisy kid gets all the attention. As such, rhum agricoles tend to be quite underrated and are generally seen as less of an experience.

The island of Martinique has its own AOC designation to protect the quality of its country's produce and reputation - the only of its kind outside of Europe. (Image Source: AFAR Magazine)

There's of course, alot more that goes into what makes rhum agricoles a sort of category of their own, in fact the lovely island of Martinique even has its own AOC designation that protects what can constitute Martiniquaise rhum agricole, the only country with an AOC designation outside of Europe. Even though rums are generally considered the wild west with little to no rules, some classifications do exist.

Delving alittle into the distillery/brand itself, the "J" in J. Bally actually stands for Jacques - it's always a Jacques, isn't it - named after Jacques Bally who was a trained engineer from Paris, who eventually came to acquire the Lajus Plantation in Martinique in the late 1910's. He had saw the land as an opportunistic investment as it came off the back of a large eruption that occured just 15 years prior - of a Mount Pelee, which was a huge sh*tshow and hence no one really was looking to own anything in the vicinity that wasn't magma resistant. Lajus itself in foreclosure and so over the next couple of years, Bally went on to put together the distillery and perhaps more aesthetically distinctive, he came to design the pyramidal and square bottles that J. Bally rhum is noticeably more unique about.

J. Bally stands out with its aesthetically beautiful pyramidal bottles that must be a nightmare to pack and ship.

The rhum was said to be fairly popular and was eventually acquired by Remy Cointreau and eventually sold again to La Martiniquaise, which purchased both Saint James and J. Bally. The distillery's stills were also moved to Domaine du Simon, which also produces several other popular rhum agricoles including Rhum Clement and Rhum J.M, albeit using cane from their respective plantations. Consequently the Lajus distillery was wound down, although it seems that the cane still comes said plantation.

Accordingly, J. Bally was also amongst the first, if not the first, to bottle an aged rhum for consuming. This was as Jacques Bally had took a page from the cognac makers in France and had experimented with ageing his rhums in oak barrels. It was this that gave his rhums more depth and a more mellowed and refined palate, which eventually became highly popular.

Habitation Clement - another popular line of rhum agricoles from Martinique, that shares the same distillery as J. Bally today. (Image Source: Martinica Online)

With us today, we've got a Millesime 2008 bottling of J. Bally, bottled for La Maison du Whisky (LMDW), which more uniquely features a blue vintage travel label (versus their usual vintage off-white map label) that showcases the map and several key highlights of the island of Martinique, overlaid with some grasses and flowers of the local flora.

For those less acquainted with rhum agricoles, another defining feature is their use of the term Millesime, which denotes the vintage of when the rhum was produced, and is also a qualifier that the specific rhum bottled came from a particularly good year of harvest, enough for it to be bottled singularly from a single vintage. This is somewhat similar to Port Wines, where some vintages carry a Colheita distinction, for expressions produced and bottled from particularly good vintages. That said, rhum agricoles tend to not state the age of the rhum or the year in which it was bottled, which is quite the deviation from other rums and spirits.

J. Bally Millesime 2008, Martinique Rhum Hors D’Age, 43% ABV - Review

Color: Glistening Amber

Fresh floral and laundry scent, a grassier cane juice and aiyu jelly, with a little zest of orange. (Image Source: Onolicious Hawaii)

On the nose: Gentle yet perfumery florals - garden roses, jasmine, lilies - there is a fresh linen -esque quality that is at once fresh and evocative of a morning walk around the garden. As it blossoms further there is the scent of sugar cane juice, water chestnut, coconut water, sea coconuts and aiyu jelly. Little specks of orange zest, dark chocolates and cinnamon.

Lovely almost light syrupy texture - polished gentle yet aromatic notes of brown sugar, kinako, hojicha, belying a grassy base of sugarcane syrup and wafts of milk chocolate.

On the palate: The textures here are lovely, hefty but not oily, almost slightly less unctuous than jelly. Silky around the palate, gliding like a sort of syrup. This offers up brown sugar, kinako (roasted soybean flour), hojicha (roasted green tea), light honey, cane juice - much more aromatic than sweet, really not as sweet as one might expect - wolfberries and milk chocolate.

Just as it faded out ever so gently - a pause - and it roars back to life with heavy notes of aromatic sea coconut jellies, aiyu jelly, kinako, and onto more tropical notes of cola syrup and coconut flakes, with just a little earthiness of dried mushrooms.

Finish: This fades away fairly quickly yet ever so smoothly you almost don’t notice. And much to my surprise, after a pause, it roars back with a sweeter more aromatic hit of sea coconut, aiyu jellies, kinako, water chestnut, cola syrup and desiccated coconut flakes, with a light earthiness of dried mushrooms.

My Take

This bottle was really enjoyable, thoroughly delightful in particular the finish! It faded off ever so gently and then suddenly roared back to life with an incredibly aromatic island profile of sea coconut, brown sugar, jellies, cola and coconut flakes with a touch of earthiness to bring these lovely airy top notes back down to the ground.

The aromas and palate were classic rhum agricole - everything you'd expect from the good island of Martinique. There's a great harmony of flavors about this bottle that display an elegance that in my opinion is best exemplified by rhum agricoles - as you can tell, I am a huge fan of the specific classification of rum.

Unlike some of its esterbomb counterparts these rums are not of the heavy style - they are much lighter, floral, grassy, and sport an amazing ethereal wispiness that is unmatched. More delicate but consequently display much more elegance and balance.

Now if that all sounds perfect, I should tell you the game of making great rhum agricoles is not without its dangers. Its use of sugarcane juice as its base for distillation means that fermentation times are typically very short for rums (1-2 days) - and as a result it can be difficult to ensure that the delicate flavors come through or are not overpowered by the oak it is matured in. It is no easy feat for an expression to convey its agricole character in full bloom and yet balance the influence of its cask without turning sour. Rhum agricoles also tend to sport a noticeably lower ABV due to its production technique which is also what makes it tedious for its true lovely colors to go on display.

That said, this expression has nailed it very well - lovely delicate flavors, with an extra oomph at the end that is guaranteed to stun - I know, I've recommended it to others who expressed as much - this one's a little stunner and highly underrated. Rums aren't just the heavy-styled stuff, this is just as spectacular, trust me.

Kanpai!

@111hotpot