Savanna Créol – Calvados Finish 2012

Savanna is a historic Reunion distillery that makes several very different rums, and this Creol bottling is its cane juice agricole, distilled from fresh pressed sugar cane juice and aged five years before a finishing period in Calvados casks. The apple brandy wood is an unusual pairing that points toward orchard fruit laid over a dry, grassy spirit.

Reunion sits outside the French-Caribbean appellations, so this is agricole in style rather than name. Cask strength and unsweetened at 54.7 percent, it should show the peppery, vegetal cane core typical of the island alongside baked apple and spice from the Calvados influence. A robust, dry pour that takes water well.