Malecon Seleccion Esplendida 1985

Malecon bottles this Seleccion Esplendida from the 1985 vintage, a Panamanian rum aged some thirty years and drawing on the country's big distillery output. Panama is the soft, vanilla-led heartland of the Spanish style, and three decades in oak have deepened that gentleness into something rich and rounded, a mellow old rum for quiet sipping.

The make is column-distilled molasses spirit matured in ex-bourbon barrels, bottled at a soft 40%. Caramel, vanilla, chocolate and a sweet note lead the nose, the palate is vanilla, caramel, sweet and balanced, and the finish carries vanilla, wood, caramel and tobacco. Helpfully the sweetness sits lower than the profile suggests, which keeps the modest proof from feeling cloying and lets the vanilla and chocolate shine. An honestly balanced, well-aged Panama, smooth and gently sweet rather than heavy, that wears its age with ease.