CDI Clarendon (Bottled for Denmark) 2010

Compagnie des Indes, the respected terroir-led French bottler, selected this 2010 Clarendon for the Danish market as a single cask, aged eleven years in ex-bourbon and bottled at a hefty cask strength 63.2%. Clarendon is a Clarendon parish workhorse whose pot still marks carry real funk, and this is a robust, full-proof expression in the house style.

Distilled from molasses, it noses on wood, a fermented note, fruit and yellow fruits, the funk reading as ripe, almost rotting fruit once rested. The palate turns woody, appley, dry and spicy, the finish woody, peppery, spicy and tinged with dried fruit. At 63.2% it is sharp and powerful, rewarding time in the glass to round out and draw its slow curtains. Unsweetened and bottled from a single barrel, this is a good, well-balanced Clarendon among its peers, a fruity, spicy, full-strength Jamaican for drinkers who want the marque at honest proof and don't mind a little fire.