By now, many would be familiar with Velier’s Caroni Paradise series, introduced to the world in 2021, marking the very last casks of Caroni rums brought to Cognac in 2019 and emptied into dame-jeannes for a couple more years before bottling. And while we’ve seen the initial five bottlings over the first two releases, the third release was quite a bumper crop, with six different bottlings at once.

Now you will forgive me if I don’t taste them in sequence, but the first had to be bottle #6, which many have feted, lauding it as the best of the Paradise series thus far. It is a single cask, no. #5619, that was distilled in 1996, spending its first 12 years in Caroni’s own storehouse before spending another nine years in Guyana, before its final voyage to Cognac in 2019. It was bottled at cask strength of 62.4% ABV, and according to La Maison du Whisky, an outturn of 115 bottles.

The nose was rich, decadent, and deep, very much like those deep, dark molasses that were likely used in its distillation. But as it breathed, it opened up to a more genteel warmth, much like toasted Anzac cookies with an additional dash of coconut shavings. And it kept growing in freshness from there on, with light wafts of freshly crushed mint leaves, slightly unripe white guavas, with those dark molasses transitioning into a softer, sweeter caramel.

The palate immediately revealed its age, with the wood showing a soft, tannic, and slightly astringent side, allowing a little chewiness to develop along the sides of the tongue. There was an element of bitters in the rum too that lent it greater complexity, and while it wasn’t overpowering, I could see how it could throw some people off. There was an industrial side to it too, although none of those petrol or tar-like notes that we often find in Caroni rums, but rather more akin to grappa, with the sweetness, the grapes, yet slightly rough, with notes of varnish and plastics. The finish was medium in length, and just as the nose, grew fruitier and sweeter as it went on, with notes of white guavas, honeydew, and grape-flavoured Hi-Chew candy.

To answer the burning question - if #6 is indeed the best of the Paradise series, unfortunately for me, that title remains with #5. Don’t get me wrong, #6 was still a good rum, and what made it stand out was its atypical profile, quite unlike any other Caroni I’ve tasted previously, missing those cola and tar flavours, while introducing new elements, like the white guavas and grappa. But it was those flavours too that made it a stretch too far and different from what I’d imagine a Caroni rum to be.

Your occasional rum addict!

@weixiang_liu