Velier Distillerie Bethel Romelus Clairin Le Rocher 2019

This is a single producer clairin from the Distillerie Bethel Romelus, one of the small Haitian operations brought to wider attention by Velier and Luca Gargano, the Genoese bottler at the heart of the natural, additive free rum movement. Clairin is Haiti's village rum, made from fresh cane juice and fermented with wild yeast in open air, essentially agricole in spirit but legally unable to use the word. It is largely unregulated, distilled in small pot stills and usually bottled clear and unaged, as this 2019 is, captured at a raw 47.2%.

Where clean agricole runs grassy and green, clairin turbocharges the funk into something savoury and feral. The nose pushes brined olive, smoked meat, bacon and barbecue char, with ripe tropical fruit and cane sap underneath and a charred, faintly floral and bitter finish. It is an acquired taste that rewards the curious, coming alive in cocktails and the classic Ti Punch as readily as it challenges neat.