Famille Ricci Worthy Park Worthy Park 19 2005

Famille Ricci bottled this 2005 Worthy Park as a single cask, aged nineteen years in ex-bourbon and held at cask strength 52.9%. Worthy Park is a single-estate St. Catherine distillery whose pot still rums are clean and precise, and at nineteen years this has developed a deeper, more savoury character while keeping its bright fruit.

Distilled on pot still from molasses, it noses on fresh banana and fruit with a smoky edge, then turns oily, salty, banana-led and intense on the palate, the finish woody and saline with citrus and a fresh lift. The salty, oily streak is an intriguing counterpoint to the usual Worthy Park fruit, the long ageing lending weight and texture without flattening the ester character. At 52.9% it is full but composed. Unsweetened and bottled from a single barrel, this is a mature, savoury-edged Worthy Park for drinkers who want the distillery's clean fruit deepened by nearly two decades in oak and an unusual saline, oily texture.