Clarendon Macnair’s Peated Exploration Rum

Macnair's, a line associated with whisky maker GlenAllachie's Billy Walker, brings a peated twist to Clarendon, Jamaica's pot-and-column workhorse distillery. This Peated Exploration rum is matured in peated whisky casks, fusing island fruit with smoke in a way that sets it well apart from the distillery's usual output, bottled at 46%.

The aroma layers smoke, banana, peat and tropical fruit, the palate keeps the smoke front and centre alongside banana, pineapple and caramel, and the finish stays smoky, funky, dry and toasted. Tasters describe huge waves of charred pineapple and banana chips, smoked oak, creamy butterscotch and distant barbecue, with the smokiness leading both nose and palate before the fruit develops. Several note the rum would benefit from higher strength, finding the 46% slightly soft for the bold flavours. This is an unusual, smoke-forward Jamaican for adventurous drinkers, a peat-and-funk crossover that delivers a genuinely different take on Clarendon's tropical character.