Clément Rhum Vieux Cuvée Festive

Clement is a 300-year Martinique estate, and this Cuvee Festive is a young aged agricole distilled from fresh-pressed sugar-cane juice and matured a little over three years in ex-bourbon oak, qualifying for the vieux tier of the island's AOC.

The profile is wood-led and fairly direct, with oak, spice and a saline, iodine note on the nose, then a woody palate carrying tropical fruit, spice and that mineral edge. The finish is warm and spicy with a touch of burnt oak. Bottled at 40% and unsweetened, it is a straightforward, spirit-forward young vieux, more of a workhorse aged agricole than a contemplative sipper, and one that takes well to a stirred drink where its spice and wood can carry.