Even as Day One of Whisky Live Singapore came to a close, the drinks didn’t end there as we were hosted to a Planteray tasting by Matthieu Gouze, The Rum Cartel and Bar Madame.

The centrepiece of the evening was a rum that was pretty out-there — the Hogo Monsta, a clever pun for a rum with a whopping 2,029 g/hl of ester content, and 3,178 g/hl of volatile compounds. To put into perspective, the DOK marque from Hampden Estate is measured at 1,600 g/hl of esters, the upper limit of what is deemed legal under Jamaican distilling laws. The Hogo Monsta was distilled in the Stades Rum Distillery in Barbados, produced using molasses and put through long fermentations and batch distillation. It was eventually bottled at 56.6% abv, with 5,000 bottles of 20cl produced.

Of course a rum like this was never meant to be taken neat, or for simple sipping. Instead, the Hogo Monsta sheds light into the rather unexplored realm of intense and extreme distillates that were meant as aromatic enhancers, so potent that a drop or two would be sufficient to transform a product entirely, particularly useful in the cocktail scene when you’d prefer some of those funky flavours coming through.

That said, I found the Hogo Monsta rather pleasant actually, in an extremely tiny sip of course, and rolling it around my palate to allow some dilution to happen. It had all the trademarks of high ester rums, funky, overripe yellow fruits, pineapples, bananas, a bit of mangoes, and then a side of industrial notes, almost like plastic of some sorts. But the finish was surprisingly pleasant, as it mellowed into a soft, marshmallow-like sweetness, that lingered on forever. A very interesting experimental rum!

Your occasional rum addict!

@weixiang_liu