Rum Runner Epris 2011

This is cachaca, not Brazilian rum: a Brazil-only spirit made from fresh-pressed, fermented sugar-cane juice rather than molasses, here from the Epris distillery and selected as a single cask by Rum Runner. At ten years in ex-bourbon oak and bottled unsweetened at cask strength, it is firmly a sipping cachaca, a world away from the raw caipirinha workhorse.

The long oak ageing layers serious wood over the grassy cane core. The nose is fresh and floral with herbal, chamomile and yellow-fruit notes, the palate turns to butterscotch, lime, dried fruit and brown sugar, and the finish settles into leather, cocoa and dark chocolate. At 52.7% the alcohol is well integrated, so it drinks more harmonious than hot. For anyone who enjoys dry, oak-and-chocolate rum but is curious about grassy cane character, this bridges both worlds in one genuinely original, unsweetened bottle.