El Ron del Artesano Rum – 18 Años (Tres Barriles 1st Release) 2024

This is a nineteen year old Panama rum from El Ron del Artesano, drawn from a single cask in the Tres Barriles first release and bottled at forty three point nine percent. Panama is a major source of long-aged column-still rum, much of it traded soft and sweet, but this independent bottling takes a markedly drier road.

Distilled from molasses on a column still and matured almost two decades in ex-bourbon wood, it is bottled without added sugar, and that decision defines it. The nose is woody and volatile with dried fruit and a clear whisky lean, the palate dry and tannic with leather and oak, so much so that it can read closer to Scotch than to a typical sweet Panamanian. Drinkers expecting the usual mellow vanilla softness will find instead a spirit-forward, cask-driven rum that wears its long age and its dryness with conviction.