Velier Foursquare Sassafras 2006

Sassafras is a Velier and Foursquare collaboration, a seven year old Barbados single blend aged in cognac casks and bottled at cask strength. Though young on paper, it was matured entirely in the tropics, where the heat works the wood hard and packs a lot of development into relatively few years, and it carries Foursquare's usual no-additives ethos.

The cognac influence deepens the distillery's recognisable toasted coconut and vanilla, adding dark chocolate, caramel and dried fruit over firm oak spice, with a long, woody, lightly chocolatey finish. It keeps the house DNA, a marriage of pot and column still rum, but turns up the wood, the spice and the strength. At 61% it is intense and completely dry, the sweetness coming from barrel and fruit rather than sugar. A characterful sipper for those who want Foursquare with more grip, best given time to open in the glass.