Kesselherz Louis Santo Single Rum 2001

Kesselherz bottles this Louis Santo as an eighteen-year Dominican single rum, and it stands apart from the local norm twice over: it is made from fresh sugar-cane juice rather than molasses, and it is unsweetened. That makes it a drier, more savoury Dominican than the soft, sugared rons the country is known for, a stepping stone for drinkers moving toward something with more grip.

The spirit is distilled on pot and column stills from cane juice and matured in ex-bourbon wood. The nose offers dried fruit, caramel, tobacco and dried apricot, the palate turns to coffee, toasted notes, dark chocolate and fruitcake, and the finish brings grass, sugarcane, dark chocolate and oak, the cane-juice origin showing through at the close. At 44% it sips easily while the oak and light bitterness give it a grown-up edge. An honest, drier Dominican with chocolate-and-oak depth and a grassy twist, rewarding if polarising.