Background: when it comes to Jamaican rums, Hampden is my go-to distillery; there are just so many bottlings of very old continentally aged Hampden rums of high-ester marks. The only other distilleries with old continental-flavoured offerings are Long Pond and New Yarmouth. Between them, I found the tropically aged Long Pond rums of marks TECA and TECC to be especially outstanding. I tasted these rums on multiple occasions over the last 3 years, and they always managed to blow me away, even against heavy-hitting Hampdens. For some reason though, I never quite got down to reviewing them. Time to rectify that.

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Name: National Rums of Jamaica TECA 2003 (15 years)

Nose: sharp and aggressive, it has no right being this coherent; a tad less dense and rounded than the 2005, but much more effervescent and effusive; plastics; cooking gas; industrial grease; hot car engine; the big industrial opening is paired with a good deal of earthiness; mushrooms; olives; canned sardine; buah keluak; unsweetened chocolate; soil and manure; smouldering landfill; then we have the exalted fermentation notes; fish sauce; sambal belachan and hae bee; XO sauce; petai; farty sulphur; vinegars galore, from fruit vinegars to Chinese black and white ones; some pickled plums and tamarind add to the vinegary fun; Shaoxing wine; hong zao, a condiment made from the lees of Chinese red glutinous rice wine; bags of liquorice; with time, it gets greener; coriander; terragon; celery juice; baked spinach; ground almond; plant saps and resins; freshly cut branches and grass; the greenness is balanced by unctuous, savoury notes; a tantalising combination of fried carbohydrates and meat, doused in sweet sauce – think korean-style spicy fried chicken or Marmite chicken; more funky manifestations of meatiness follow; raw beef steak; kalle-pache; braised oxtail with an assortment of organs, notably kidneys; steamed fish gone bad; roasted nuts; fresh sweat and smelly socks; beneath all these runs a strong undercurrent of fruits; overripe pineapple and mango; cempedak; soursop; guava; canned peach; citrus fruits like kumquat and calamansi.

Palate: incredibly intense; nigh unparalleled profundity and complexity; grippy and creamy mouthfeel; an explosion of tropical fruits; pineapple; mango; soursop; butyric and lactic notes; vomit; spoilt milk; lassi; kulfi; sharp and vinegary, with a dash of balsamic vinegar to complement a surfeit of white ones; beer wort; malt candy; kvass; the mid-palate starts off plasticky and metallic and mineral; acrylic; varnish; plastic electronic enclosures, some freshly unboxed, some set on fire; hot car engine; wet metals and rust; wet rocks (slate, limestone) and hard water; fishy and meaty now; salmon sashimi; canned tuna and sardine; steamed fish with ginger and salted plum; chorizo; basashi; funky offal stew; burning garbage a la Hampden high-ester rums; old hard and blue cheeses; fermented beans and bean-based products – natto, dou chi, smelly beancurd; a cocktail of Wu Liang Ye and Moutai and Chartreuse V.E.P.s; more green and medicinal notes on the back-palate; raw almond; green vines; freshly cut branches and grass; roasted seeds; iodine and hospital floor notes, signatures of modern Laphroaig distillates; traditional Chinese medicine shop; embrocations and salves; essential oils for aromatherapy; saps and resins and incense; the end of the palate is evocative of being in a temple located deep in the woods.

Finish: long as all hell, pretty much eternal; earthy and oaky and savoury; the earthiness is almost on the level of this distinguished C<>H; olive tapenade and liquorice for days; industrial grease; diesel and tar; cooking gas; bloody liver; eau de vie de marcs in the typical briny and pungent style, but with greater heft and weight; petrichor; cardboard; wet wood; earl grey milk tea; gingerbread; salted caramel; coconut tart; dark chocolate; various nuts, roasted, baked and in paste form; impressions of confections in the vein of gianduja arise from a combination of aforementioned notes; mushrooms; hotpot condiments like shacha sauce and lao gan ma; Cantonese salted fish and vegetables – haam yu and haam choy, respectively – real stinky buggers, but ultimately delicious in the right dishes; more sweat and smelly socks and general body odour; Cantonese-style pork ribs soup, with herbs and pears and apples; peanut and walnut skins, very much in the spirit of dry sherries and vin jaune; the aftertaste continues to tread that fine line between the daring and the obscene, comprising blood, fruit and vegetable pickles, ceramic pottery, cling wrap, and enough brine, salt and minerals to conjure images of sea caves and alpine streams.

Conclusion: unequivocally fearsome. Such unreal development, with so many layers of flavours playing so well off one another. I expected 94 points from this before taking detailed notes; at the end of the session, I knew that would be too low a score. Off-kilter and excessive even amongst high-ester rums, it somehow managed to be through-the-roof compelling with nary a misstep. Easily, one of my top 3 rums ever.

Score (assuming a normal distribution with mean 50): 96/100

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Name: Habitation Velier TECA 2005 (14 years)

Nose: much more rounded than the 2003; thick, rich and hits like a truck – crazy amount of power and density; vanilla; milk chocolate; caramel; brown sugar; maple syrup; this is very bourbony on first nose; after a while, the Long Pond hogo becomes more noticeable; seawater brine; copper coins; rust; wet rocks; some yeasty and bready notes; dry Champagnes aged for many years on the lees; potato chips and cookie dough, both heavily salted; as in the 2003, meat is present here, just less offensively so; pork floss; bakkwa; barbecue ribs; Peking duck and its sauce; all rather palatable, delectable even; deeper in the glass, there is a whole fruity dimension, though the fruits here are darker and duller than in the 2003; raisins; dried apricot and fig; maraschino cherry; apples, stewed and rotten; the brine and metals and dark fruits combine to give off vibes of demerara rums distilled in the four-column French Savalle still; old mead and old tokaji essencia; forest honey; root beer; the Shaoxing wine and liquorice aspects are more dominant here, and form the backbone of the olfactory experience.

Palate: okay, this is far from a bourbon; still rich as can be, great intensity; even grippier than the 2003, but much simpler in flavour; the lack of breadth is compensated by remarkable depth – the palate effortlessly commandeers an entire connected component of adjacent notes; the throughline seems to encompass all candied roots and herbs in existence; as a result, the associations with liquorice and root beer are stronger here than in the 2003; there is also more in the way of Shaoxing wine and hong zao and yes, sauce aroma baijiu, including influences from both the more acidic mou/mao-style (exemplified by Moutai) and the earthier lang-style (exemplified by Lang jiu) of sauce aroma; some greenness reminiscent of wheatgrass juice and grass jelly; fruity funk carries the back-palate; durian in gula melaka; fried banana and jackfruit; overripe strawberries in cream; maraschino cherries; the fruits here are sweeter, redder, less bright and acidic, compared to the 2003.

Finish: shorter than that of the 2003, but still extremely long; the start of the finish sees significant overlap with this Old Brothers Hampden – particularly its combination of fruits, earth and redness; herbal candy; cane syrup; menthol; tobacco; chocolate; the most powerful rhum agricoles, perhaps some young high-proof cognacs too; dried apples and pomegranate in cream; the aftertaste is medicinal and redolent of metallic brine; iodine; Tiger Balm; dit da jow; anise; cumin; rust; blood; olives.

Conclusion: these tropically aged high-ester Long Ponds are real juggernauts, performing at a level few rums in their teens can ever dream of. This one may pale in comparison to the 2003, but the latter also made a unicorn XPD seem frail and one-dimensional. Indeed, the 2003 being transcendental should not diminish the greatness on display here. This is a monolith of a rum, enormous and unyielding yet full of character.

Score (assuming a normal distribution with mean 50): 90/100

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