Velier Sonson Pierre Gilles Clairin Sonson 2018

Clairin Sonson is a single-producer Haitian rum bottled by Velier, the house that brought Haiti's village rum to a wider audience by tying each release to one distiller, terroir and cane variety. Clairin is cane-juice spirit in the agricole spirit, though it cannot legally use the word: fresh-pressed sugar cane juice, wild spontaneous fermentation with no commercial yeast or additives, distilled in a small pot still and almost always unaged.

This is turbo-charged cane-juice character. The nose is fresh, vegetal and mineral with olive, the palate brings green sugarcane, salt and a stony minerality, and the finish stays earthy, grassy and saline. Bottled at 53.2% with nothing added, it is rugged, savoury and full of snap rather than sweet or polished, a wild white that tastes the way rum did before refinement smoothed it out. One for drinkers who already enjoy clairin or savoury agricole blancs and want the unfiltered, terroir-driven extreme, and a vivid base in a Ti Punch or Daiquiri.