Romdeluxe Wild Series Rum No. 24 (Batch 2) 1999

This Wild Series bottling from Danish house Romdeluxe takes a single cask of Panamanian rum from a 1999 vintage and presents it at twenty-two years and full cask strength. Panama rum is usually mellow and marzipan-soft, but this one breaks the mould entirely, delivering a smoky, woody intensity more often associated with peated whisky.

Matured in ex-bourbon casks, it shows grass, peat, smoke and caramel on the nose, a woody, warm, smoky palate, and a long finish of wood, peat and tobacco with a menthol lift. At 63.7% the power is considerable but the alcohol is well integrated, and the caramelised sweetness keeps the smoke and earth from turning austere. As a single cask it offers something genuinely unusual for the origin, a dark, campfire-like rum aimed at drinkers who enjoy wood-heavy, high-proof spirits with a whisky-like twist.