Labourdonnais Fusion Vanilla

Labourdonnais distils on Mauritius from fresh pressed sugar cane juice, agricole in method though outside the protected naming, and this Fusion Vanilla takes that base and flavours and sweetens it around vanilla. The honest description is a sweetened, flavoured rum, closer to a vanilla liqueur than to a dry cane spirit, and at 37.5% it sits below standard rum strength.

The nose is honey, vanilla and sweetness, and the palate follows with sweet vanilla and demerara sugar, the rum character largely subsumed beneath the added flavour and sugar. Some drinkers find the vanilla shows more on the nose than it delivers on the palate, leaving the whole rather indistinct. It is unmistakably sweet and built for drinkers who want a soft, dessert toned pour, over ice or stirred into coffee and sweet cocktails, rather than for neat appraisal. Described plainly, it is a gentle flavoured bottling that makes no claim to being a serious sipping rum.