Manufaktur Lehmitz Caroni Cask Angels HTR 1998

This single cask comes from Caroni, the Trinidad distillery on the Caroni plain that closed around 2003, its surviving stocks made famous after Velier rescued the forgotten casks. Bottled by Manufaktur Lehmitz under their Cask Angels label, it was distilled in 1998 and held twenty years before bottling at cask strength.

Matured in ex-bourbon oak from molasses distillate, it sits at the dense, savoury end of the Caroni spectrum, medicinal and tarry on the nose with anise and roasted notes, then leather, tar and a cool minty edge on the palate. The 64.7% strength drives a dry finish of wood, tannin and smoke, with a gentle sweetness and faint bitterness rounding the edges. Caroni was too strong and strange to drink young, blended into naval rum at a fraction of the whole, which is exactly the heavy industrial character this long-aged bottling preserves. One for collectors who like their Caroni dry and uncompromising.