Uitvlugt Plantation Extrême N.4 (For Belgium – The Nectar) 1993

This Plantation Extreme release from Maison Ferrand takes a 27 year Uitvlugt, a refined and fruity Savalle column marque from Guyana, and finishes it in a heavily peated whisky cask for the Belgian importer The Nectar. The continental ageing keeps the spirit elegant, but the cask choice steers it somewhere unusual for aged rum, and the house is open about its cask driven approach.

The column still molasses base would normally read clean and lightly spiced, yet here peat, smoke and iodine dominate the nose and palate, with grass, olive and dry oak underneath and a fresher vanilla and herbal note returning on the finish. The smoke largely overwrites the rum's own character, which makes this a fun, challenging pour for drinkers who love Islay whisky and want to see that world cross with Guyana. Those after pure, undisguised Demerara should look elsewhere.