Worthy Park RA Rum 2007

Rum Artesanal, the German house in the unsweetened full-proof tradition, bottled this 2007 Worthy Park, aged seventeen years in ex-bourbon with a sherry influence and held at cask strength 57.9%. Worthy Park is a single-estate St. Catherine distillery whose pot still rums are clean and precise, and this long-aged release leans into a darker, woodier profile.

Distilled on pot still from molasses, it noses on banana, wood, roast and smoke, with ripe banana, Jamaican funk, glue, cherry and ester appearing, then a palate of wood, roast, banana and chocolate, the finish woody and roasted with chocolate and caramel. The sherry finish adds cherry and a darker fruit, though an assertive acidity and a strongly woody, roasted character run through, the long maturation pushing oak forward. At 57.9% it is powerful and wood-driven. Unsweetened and bottled at cask strength, this is a mature, roasted, chocolate-edged Worthy Park for drinkers who want a heavily aged, oak-forward take on the distillery with the funk surviving underneath.