Clément Secrets de fûts (Intense)

Clement is a long standing Martinique estate, and this Secrets de futs sits in its more accessible range, an aged agricole distilled from fresh pressed cane juice on a column still and widely found on supermarket shelves. Despite the Intense name, it is a dry, restrained expression, bottled unsweetened at 41.4% and pitched as honest everyday value.

Four years in oak, much of it ex bourbon, give it a markedly wood forward character, the nose all barrel, caramel and vanilla, the palate woody and smoky with a faint cane edge, and a finish of vanilla, coffee and citrus. The grassy agricole signature plays second fiddle to the oak here, making it a soft, low funk way into cane juice rum for drinkers coming from bourbon. It is a dependable, affordable sipper that asks little, neat or over ice.