S.B.S 2012

Bottled by Denmark's 1423 under their detail-minded S.B.S Single Barrel Selection, this is a 2012 Venezuelan rum drawn from a single ex-bourbon cask and presented at full strength. Venezuela sits in the soft, dessert-leaning Spanish school, and this expression shows how much character a clean molasses spirit can pull from twelve years in oak rather than from sugar.

The house style here is column-distilled molasses rum matured in ex-bourbon barrels, bottled at cask strength and without chill filtration, which keeps the texture full and the wood honest. Caramel, vanilla and roasted, toasted-oak notes lead, with a finish that drifts toward dark chocolate and cocoa and a wisp of smoke. At 57% it carries real grip, so a few drops of water help it open, and it reads as a fair, food-friendly sipper rather than a sweetened crowd-pleaser.