Rum Runner Rum

Rum Runner bottled this young Trinidad rum from molasses, a six year old at a robust 51% with no added sugar declared. Trinidad's living style is usually light and column-distilled, clean and cocktail-friendly, and this sits in that family while pushed to a higher strength than the island's gentler everyday pours.

Matured in ex-bourbon oak, it leans dry and oak-forward, with roasted and woody aromas, a coffee note and a thread of dried apricot. The palate stays alcoholic and roasty, and the spirit runs a little hot through a warm, faintly bitter finish touched with vanilla. The alcohol is not fully knitted in here, so this reads as a young, rough-edged Trinidadian rather than a polished sipper, best met with realistic expectations or pointed toward mixing.