Saint Aubin Rhum Extra Premium Cacao

Saint Aubin distils on the island of Mauritius from fresh-pressed sugar cane juice, agricole in style though outside the protected term, and this Extra Cacao is a flavoured release rather than a straight rum. Cocoa is added, and the rum is sweetened, so it should be read as a cocoa-forward sipper, not a dry cane-juice spirit.

The profile is exactly what the name promises: cocoa dominates the nose, and the palate is chocolatey and sweet with a soft, slightly thin body. At 40 percent it is gentle and approachable, more dessert pour than serious sipper, sitting somewhere between a rum and a cocoa liqueur. Drinkers who enjoy chocolate over vanilla in their sweetened rums will find it pleasant after dinner, but it makes no pretence of being a dry, vegetal agricole, and honesty about its sweetness is the right note to strike.