Trois Rivières Millésime 1970

Trois Rivieres traces its estate to 1660 with well over a century of rum behind it, now distilled at the La Mauny site, and a 1970 Millesime is a genuine piece of agricole history. Made from fresh pressed sugarcane juice and column distilled, then bottled at 45% after extraordinarily long ageing, this is the kind of vintage rhum that shows just how gracefully cane juice spirit can mature.

Decades in oak have layered the grassy agricole core with cinnamon, banana and a pronounced floral lift on the nose, while the palate stays dry and vegetal with cinnamon and clove spice. The finish is long and savoury, trailing licorice, nuttiness and leather. This is a contemplative old agricole, more about depth, spice and tertiary oak development than fruit or sweetness, and it carries its years with elegance. A rhum for a quiet, unhurried glass, neat and at room temperature, savoured by anyone who appreciates how the best Martinique vintages age.