Mount Gay Master Blender Collection – Andean Oak Cask

Mount Gay is the heritage name of Barbados, marketing its St Lucy distillery as the world's oldest with a deed dated 1703. This Master Blender Collection bottling is a deliberately experimental release, a 14 Year Old taken through an extra spell in Andean oak that pulls it well off the house's usual easy path and toward something drier and more cerebral.

Distilled on the pot still from molasses and aged in ex-bourbon oak before the Andean cask finish, it lands unsweetened, woody and unmistakably technical. The aroma opens on glue, vegetal notes, leather, honey and yellow fruit, the palate turns minty, herbal and medicinal with mango and pencil shavings, and the finish stays dry, woody and cooling. The result drinks almost like a whisky, oak-driven and intellectual rather than sweet, a fascinating curiosity for drinkers who enjoy dry Barbados rum or oak-led spirits and want Mount Gay at its most unusual.