Sansibar Caroni Rum (The Auld Alliance) 1998

Caroni stopped distilling in 2003, and almost every bottle since has come from the finite stock of casks left behind on the Trinidad plain, which is what makes a 1998 like this one worth seeking out. Sansibar, the German independent, has drawn a single ex-bourbon barrel and bottled it without reduction at 58.7 percent, leaving 24 years of tropical and continental ageing to speak plainly.

This is the heavy, oily side of Caroni rather than the light column style, so expect the archetypal industrial signature, roasted notes and rubber over deep raisin and dark oak. The taste leans into tar, liquorice and more of that burnt-rubber character, and the finish stays woody and smoky with a savoury, petroleum edge. Distilled from Trinidadian molasses and aged in ex-bourbon oak, it reads dry and dense, a savoury sipper for those who already know what heavy Trinidad tastes like.