Dictador Best of 1980

Dictador Best of 1980 sits at the head of the Colombian house's range, a single cask drawn from the 1980 vintage and bottled after an extraordinary stretch in wood. Dictador is one of Colombia's defining names, built on coffee and cocoa rich profiles and a solera leaning approach, though this release carries a genuine vintage and a real cask behind it.

Distilled on column stills from molasses and aged in Ex-Bourbon oak, it shows the concentration that decades of tropical ageing bring: a floral, caramelled nose giving way to dates, brown sugar and tobacco, then an earthy finish of tobacco, oak and coffee. The sugar status is undisclosed and Colombian ron often carries some dosage, but the dominant impression here is age and oak rather than added sweetness, a contemplative pour for those drawn to old, dark, dried fruit driven rum.