Paranubes Cana Morada Oaxaca Rum

Paranubes is a small Mexican producer working in the mountains of Oaxaca from fresh pressed sugar cane juice, a cane juice spirit that sits closer in feel to clairin or mezcal than to a polished Caribbean agricole. This Cana Morada is finished in tequila casks and bottled unsweetened at a punchy 54.4%, a rum that wears its wildness on its sleeve.

The profile is firmly savoury and vegetal, with green olive, smoked chili and a briny, almost meaty edge running through tropical fruit, pineapple, lime and banana funk. There is little here to soften it, so neat it can be confronting, all olive and smoke and green cane, but that same untamed character lights up a Daiquiri or a savoury cocktail. It belongs with drinkers who already love mezcal and clairin funk and want to see that energy translated into rum, vivid, divisive and full of personality.