The Wild Parrot Caroni HTR 1998

This is a Heavy mark Caroni, the HTR designation collectors prize, drawn from the 1998 vintage and bottled by The Wild Parrot as a single cask at cask strength after twenty years. Caroni, the Trinidad distillery that ceased production around 2003, left only a finite store of casks, and the heavier marks like this one sit at the most characterful end of its range.

Matured in ex-bourbon oak, it opens on rubber, solvent and red fruit, then delivers a dense palate of coffee, tar, burnt sugar and tropical fruit, the medicinal and leathery notes giving way to dark fruit and caramel as it sits. The finish is long and tarry, threaded with coffee. At 62.6% this is an intense, oily, industrial-style rum balanced by genuine sweetness and fruit, a slow contemplative sipper for those who already chase full-proof Caroni and its savoury power.