Ron Abuelo Añejo XII Años (Three Angels)

Ron Abuelo Anejo XII Anos is the twelve year expression from Varela Hermanos, Panama's dominant house, distilled at the Destileria Don Jose on multi column stills in the smooth Spanish style. The base is sugar cane honey rather than straight molasses, concentrated cane juice that carries a little more aromatic weight into the spirit, then matured in ex bourbon oak where the column distillate picks up most of its character.

The profile leans on candied vanilla, prune and dried fruit over toffee and toasted wood, with a drier, faintly smoky and woody finish that gives it more depth than the standard Abuelo tiers. It is a sweetened rum and tastes it, the sugar rounding the edges into comfortable after dinner territory rather than dry sipping. At 43% it is gentle and easy, equally at home neat or stretched into a rum and cola, a soft introduction to aged Panama for anyone who likes the genre's honeyed style.