Takamaka Grankaz Rum Batch 3 Vintage 2024

Grankaz is part of the St André Series, produced at Trois Frères Distillery on Mahé in the Seychelles. It’s designed as a layered blend rather than a single style rum, combining multiple rum components to build weight, definition, and length at a higher bottling strength. The blend includes a base of local distillates and a portion of aged Barbados rum, giving it a more developed oak and spice backbone than the core range.

The build is explicitly technical: Takamaka describe Grankaz as a combination of rum made from sugarcane juice matured in new French oak (medium toast), rum made from molasses matured in ex bourbon barrels (including first and second fill), plus an 8 year old rum from Foursquare Distillery in Barbados. From a flavour chemistry point of view, that means you’re getting two different oak extraction sets. Virgin French oak pushes harder spice, tannin grip, toast and lignin driven aromatics, while ex bourbon barrels contribute more vanilla and coconut like lactones with softer tannin structure. The older Barbados component adds further oxidative depth and integration, which shows as darker sweetness, dried fruit tones and a rounder mid palate.

On the nose you can expect toasted oak, vanilla and caramel first, followed by deeper molasses notes and a warm spice edge. The palate is full bodied and dry leaning for the style, with cocoa, toffee, oak spice and a peppery warmth that stays controlled rather than hot, helped by the structure from the wood and the blend composition. The finish is long, woody and slightly bitter in a good way, fading through dark caramel, spice and toasted oak rather than sugary sweetness.