Ingenio San Carlos Grander Speyside Finish Single Barrel

This Grander single barrel comes from Ingenio San Carlos in Panama, a fourteen-year-old rum finished in a Speyside whisky cask and bottled unsweetened at cask strength. It takes Panama's soft column-distilled molasses base in a markedly different direction, the whisky wood and full proof pushing it toward something built for drinkers who cross over from single malt.

The aroma is woody and rich with raisin, orange and vanilla, but the palate is where the whisky cask asserts itself, turning woody, smoky and spicy with a clear malt influence, and the finish stays dry, smoky and peppery. At a powerful 64.3% it is intense and demands a drop of water to open up. This is a robust, unsweetened Panamanian for the whisky-minded, trading the origin's usual mellowness for grip, smoke and cask-strength heat.