Foursquare Doorly‘s 12 Years

Foursquare Doorly's 12 Years is a Barbados rum from the distillery many regard as the island's finest, a single blended rum of pot and column still distillate aged twelve years in ex-bourbon oak and bottled at 40%. Foursquare, run by Richard Seale, holds a strict no additives line, so this is genuinely unsweetened, a straightforward expression of the Bajan house style.

The classic Barbados profile is balance and elegance, sitting between light Cuban and heavy Jamaican rum, and Doorly's 12 delivers it. The nose is woody and fruity with vanilla, caramel and coconut, and the palate is round, spicy and woody with vanilla and oak through a sweet but additive free finish. The Foursquare distillate is famously mild, so the long ageing brings plenty of oak, occasionally to the point that the wood leads. As an honest, dependable and well priced introduction to real Barbados rum, it is an easy bottle to recommend.