HSE Cuvée de l‘an 2016

HSE, or Habitation Saint-Etienne, is distilled at Distillerie du Simon in Martinique and known for its vintage and cask-finished agricoles. This Cuvee de l'an 2016 captures a single year of harvest, pressed from fresh sugar-cane juice rather than molasses, the French-island exception that gives agricole its grassy, vegetal signature.

Run through a creole column still, deliberately distilled low to keep the green congeners in the spirit, it stays true to the AOC tradition of no added sugar. The nose is fresh and rounded with sugar-cane sap and a vegetal lift, and the palate carries that crispness through into citrus and fresh stalk. At 50% it has body and snap without heat, closing silky and peppery with a warm tail. A clean, honest blanc-leaning agricole that makes a natural base for Ti' Punch.