With the Caroni Paradise #6 out of the way, we arrive at #10, a single cask bearing the numbers #3927, holding Caroni rums of the Heavy Trinidad Rum (HTR) marque. Relatedly, a curious little observation I made was that bottles #6 to #11 were all Heavy Caroni rums, unlike the earlier releases which featured blended Caronis too. #10 was distilled in 1998 and aged exclusively in the Trinidadian tropics for the next 20 years before being decanted in Cognac in 2019. With an outturn of 115 bottles, the #10 was also bottled at a frightfully high ABV of 70.2%, an impressive number given its relatively long tropical aging.

Despite its rather intimidating ABV, the #10 was easy on the nose, coming across as a whole lot fresher, uplifting, and I daresay more fruity than #6, predominantly notes of citrus, that scent of freshly peeled mandarin oranges with a little zing. And because of that relative lightness of it all, a part of me wondered if this could’ve been a blended or a Light Trinidad Rum (LTR), as an HTR would most certainly not be my first guess if I had tasted this blind. There was, of course, a little more complexity and depth to the nose, with hints of nuttiness, walnuts perhaps, and some savouriness of oyster sauce in the mix too.

The palate was a slight oily, with a body that straddled somewhere between a medium-to-light intensity. The very first notes were that of citrus-like sweetness once again, rather characteristic of a column-still rum one finds in the Spanish-influenced regions of the Caribbean, alongside a very peculiar sweet note of candy floss, something I never thought to find in a Caroni. The industrial notes were more pronounced in the middle, though not of the heavy, tarry notes that we would expect of a traditional Caroni. Instead, it came in the form of sharpness, that metallic tone of aluminium, paired with wood varnish. The finish was medium in length, surprisingly fruity, with a return of those tangerine notes, alongside the florals one gets from white tea, and a hint of green grapes.

It was rather interesting that the new releases this far have exhibited characters that were profoundly different to our traditional understanding of Caroni rums. Both possessed fruity notes that appeared brighter, fresher, less intense than other Caronis would have it, which makes for a complex and interesting range of flavours for rum enthusiasts to explore.

Your occasional rum addict!

@weixiang_liu