Planteray 2018 (Saint Estèphe Cask)

Maison Ferrand's Planteray line has drawn this 2018 Barbados single cask and finished it in Saint Estephe wood, the Bordeaux red-wine influence shaping its character. Bottled at 50.5 percent, it is a young rum that leans on the wine cask, and as with the Plantation range it uses dosage rather than the island's strict no-additives approach.

The nose is light and woody with cherry and coffee, and the palate stays light yet turns sweet with woody, roasted and honeyed notes. The finish runs woody and herbal with tobacco and more honey. One taster found the cask clearly a wet one, leaving the rum almost as sweet as a sherry-matured spirit. Distilled from molasses and matured in ex-bourbon before the wine finish, this is a sweeter, wine-led Barbados rather than a dry classic, best enjoyed for its dark, vinous fruit rather than the island's drier banana-and-toffee signature.