Foursquare Fidelitas - 20 Year Barbados Rum

A French rum swindler once mentioned the following about ageing rum in the tropics:” You have a high angel’s share, lots of humidity, and that heat designs the rum in a specific way. This is great during the early years, but after ten years it can get rather tired.”

Really? For a rum to be great, the characteristics of the distillate should be noticeable on the palate, regardless of how long it’s been aged in oak. Once the oak has taken over too much, it’s no longer a great rum. That is my personal opinion. If that’s what he means, then I agree with him on that. Did I just say I agree with Alexandre Gabriel on something??! Yes! However…….shipping the rum to France, transferring it to Cognac casks and adding sugar definitely doesn’t let the original distillate shine, it buries it further. The magical Planteray way! Therefore, we can file his comment under the label “bs marketing” once again. It’s a way to justify his “double ageing” regime, which he calls a “technique” for some reason, which actually makes sense, as it is a marketing technique.

Ten years in the tropics doesn’t necessarily produce an overoaked rum. Distilleries like Worthy Park, St Lucia Distillers, Hampden, Mount Gay, Demerara Distillers and others have already produced many wonderful expressions of 10+ years old. Another distillery that has done this is Foursquare in Barbados. Apart from their Doorly’s 12 and 14 year of their regular lineup, we’ve seen a plethora of Foursquare ECS releases older than 10 years. All of them receiving majority positive reviews. The one I’m looking at here is a very special one. Foursquare Fidelitas has been aged in Barbados for 20 years! The oldest rum that’s been distilled, aged and bottled at Foursquare so far. This is quite an achievement. Just think back to what you were doing 20 years ago. That’s a long time! Add the fact that evaporation is high in Barbados, which means a lot of the liquid has vanished by now. It takes a lot of patience to not sell a barrel that’s losing money for 20 years.

Fidelitas has been released as a black bottle Velier expression. Bottled at 55%. It spent 19 years in ex-bourbon and 1 year in ex-marsala cask.

Nosing

Very fruity nose, especially in the red fruit department. Oak, vanilla, some typical bourbon barrel vibes, chocolate with raisins, coconut, candle wax, molasses, cherries, honey, light orange, light pine. I’m getting some Christmas vibes. Too soon though…..Halloween first!

Tasting

It’s quite heavy on oak, dark chocolate, spicy, coconut, marsala influence is noticeable (likely brought the edgy spice down, making it fruitier and rounder), red fruits, some vanilla, bourbon cask flavours, burnt wood, light bbq sauce, light orange. Surprisingly, the finish is not that long, with some bitterness.

Conclusion

Fidelitas doesn’t blow me away. It’s Foursquare, it’s an enjoyable rum, but it’s not anywhere near the FS top for me. I’m getting Shibboleth memories, where I felt it was missing some complexity and body. Fidelitas also has a lighter body. It’s slightly thin, which is disappointing after that excellent nose. On the topic of wood, I definitely wouldn’t classify Fidelitas as overoaked, but it is a bit too heavy on the wood for my oak sensitive palate.

I totally get why it can be a great moment for anyone at a distillery to produce a 20 year old rum. It’s a massive milestone. Something to be proud of. I certainly would be if I worked there. As a rum enthusiast, my first reaction to hearing about a 20 year Foursquare rum was “WOW, cool! Well done!”. However, purely as a rum drinker, I really don’t care about age much. In the end it’s the nose and palate that matter. In this case the nose is very nice, the palate is…..ok. I’ve had many experiences where a younger rum outperformed an older one. This is one of those.

I’ll continue to enjoy the 14, 15, 16 year Foursquare expressions instead. Actually, I need to finish the last bit of my bottle of FS 2005. An excellent rum and “only” 12 years old. Such a pity they stopped producing that series.

This is where this review should have ended. But, because I was somewhat disappointed with Fidelitas, I wanted to double, triple check and compare it to a few others. I grabbed a bottle of Isonomy. Not as fruity, but not as woody either, so more expressive to me. Bigger body, better finish.

Then, Patrimonio. This does have more of that fruity side, thanks to the sherry cask. God this is good. Has some of my favourite tobacco flavour in it. Finish is longer than Isonomy. That one has the perfect bourbon cask vibe though. Hard to compare these two. One thing is for sure though, they are miles better than Fidelitas.

After I wrote all this I was curious if there were any other reviews of Foursquare Fidelitas on the net. There are a few! Not surprisingly, they are all very positive, gushing. In these instances I always wonder what it would be like if it was served blind, where one doesn’t know it’s Foursquare, nor that it’s 20 years old and without an image of a black bottle. The outcome could be very different. But then again, my palate might just be shit compared to the other reviewers. The latter is more likely.  

If you need some Fidelitas positivity in your life, click here and here for completely different reviews.

Score

Foursquare Fidelitas – 77

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