Oxenham Craft Distillery Bougainville Vanille

Oxenham is a Mauritian distillery, and this Bougainville Vanille is an openly flavoured rum rather than a traditional agricole, built on a molasses base distilled on a pot still. Mauritius sits outside the French AOC framework, so even its cane-juice rums are agricole-style at best; this bottling goes a different route entirely, leaning into added vanilla and sweetness at 40%.

The profile is exactly what the name promises: vanilla dominates the aroma and the palate, broad and sweet, with the molasses spirit giving a soft, rounded base for the flavouring to sit on. This is honestly a dessert pour or a mixer rather than a dry, contemplative rum, closer in spirit to a vanilla liqueur than to the grassy, peppery cane-juice rums of the French islands. Served chilled or over ice, it plays to its sweet, easy-going strengths.