Barbancourt Cuvée 150th Anniversary

Barbancourt is Haiti's most famous distillery, working not from molasses but from sugar-cane honey, the syrup pressed from fresh cane, and distilling on a double column. That places it apart from the wild village clairins, in a smoother, French-influenced house style, and this cuvee marks the distillery's 150th anniversary.

The profile is soft and rounded, with caramel, brown sugar, vanilla and a velvety quality on the nose, then caramel, raisin and nutmeg across a smooth palate. The finish brings spice, coffee and barrel notes. Bottled at 40%, it is an elegant, mellow Haitian rum that leans on long oak ageing for its richness rather than any added sweetness, a polished sipper that shows a very different face of Haiti from the raw cane-juice clairins.