The second @barbancourthaiti sample I had was probably their most exquisite release yet - the Reserve Veronelli. This was borne from a once-off collaboration between Barbancourt and Luigi Veronelli, a famous Italian gourmand and poet, whom had travelled with Italian importer Bonfanti to Haiti in the 1970s.

The rarity of this bottle stems from two very important factors: that this was the very first collaboration Barbancourt had embarked on, up until 2022 when a second such collaborative bottling was done with Bar 1802 in Paris; and that this is the oldest Barbancourt ever bottled, aged in an 800 litre French limousine oak barrel for more than 25 years in the tropics, bottled at 43% abv with an outturn of 1196 bottles.

The nose has all the hallmarks of an old Barbancourt rhum, those rich, warm vanilla notes, with a side of cinnamon and anise. What really struck me about the Reserve Veronelli was how the citrus and mint notes seem to be ever more present than the 15-year-old, and just a wee bit more complex as well, with savoury and brine-y notes in that mix.

The palate was rather similar to the nose, as a linear and clean tasting rum. There isn’t a tremendous amount of complexity in it, but what it is is a simple yet elegant and balanced rum. There’s lots of toffee, vanilla, baking spices, hints of citrus on the side. You get a medium-length finish, minty, rather spritely on the palate. And here you are able to pick out the additional ten years of aging in the subtle form of a mustiness that lingers on.

What a treat to have been able to taste the Reserve Veronelli, given its low outturn and that it was bottled many decades ago. Truth be told, I still preferred the old Reserve du Domaine, there was a touch of finesse about it, perhaps tempered by spending less years aging in the tropics, allowing the rhum to express itself with greater elegance and better texture. But that doesn’t take away the uniqueness of the Reserve Veronelli, and how it is perhaps one or the greatest treasures from Barbancourt’s distillery in Port-au-Prince.

Image Courtesy of @weixiang_liu