CDI Licorera Cihuatán 2007

CDI Licorera Cihuatán 2007 is a single cask from Compagnie des Indes, the French house known for terroir-led, broad-origin bottlings, here drawing on Licorera Cihuatán in El Salvador. Distilled in 2007 and aged eleven years, it sits in the natural single-cask style the bottler is respected for, declared unsweetened so the spirit and the wood speak without dosage smoothing them over.

Matured in an ex-bourbon cask, the standard route for aged molasses rum, it shows the deeper, drier register a single barrel can give. The nose carries dried apricot, oak, spice and a wintry note, while the palate is heavy and layered, dried apricot meeting bergamot, and the finish runs to nutmeg and a firm, spicy length. At 43% it is poured at a measured strength rather than cask proof, an unsweetened, fruit-and-spice expression of a Central American distillery seen through a careful French selection.