Islay Rum Overproof And The Jamaican Giants

I’m a big fan of Jamaican rum. It’s hard to find one that I don’t like. The Jamaicans are very well known for their super charged, jet fuel like, high ester expressions. Extremely fragrant fruit bombs that are worshiped by a very small minority of dedicated rum consumers, also known as the rum geeks. Everyone else uses these rums for flavouring (chocolates, perfume, cocktails), blending or runs off after smelling them from a mile away. Outside of this tiny bubble, Appleton and Wray & Nephew Overproof are by far the most well known Jamaican rum brands. Ask a random person if they’ve ever heard of Hampden, Long Pond or Worthy Park and you will almost certainly get a “no”. This includes people from Jamaica by the way (I’ve tested this in Toronto). One of the reasons is a lack of premiumization from these distilleries. Until recently they were mainly functioning as bulk rum producers. Selling unaged rums at low prices to foreign entities. It wasn’t that long ago that you could only get an aged Hampden rum through independent bottlers. The markup for aged rums is enormous, which means most money is made by the company who’s ageing and or bottling it. That penny seems to have dropped in Jamaica and all distilleries are focusing much more on ageing their rum than before. This is a great development in my opinion. First, they should be making more money from their distilling efforts and second, tropically aged rum is different from continentally aged rum. The more options the better.

Luckily though, they are also continuing to sell unaged rum. Wray & Nephew has always been available to me through the LCBO, Ontario’s one and only liquor store. Since the selection at the LCBO is mediocre at best, we’ve been lucky to have it. At 63% it’s not for the faint of heart. Then again, the majority of people would use this as a component in a cocktail or blend, not as a sipper. However, the latter is what I’m about to rate these on. Because, why not? There must be people crazy enough out there who drink Wray on its own and don’t need to taste any oak to be happy. This one’s for you! :)

To make this a lot more interesting I’ve added a few more rums to the Lineup. Hampden’s Rum Fire, Worthy Park’s Rum Bar Overproof and the reason for this article...Islay Rum’s Overproof from……SCOTLAND???? Who the heck is crazy enough to produce an estery overproof rum in Scotland? Well, that would be owner and distiller of The Islay Rum Company, Ben Inglis. I had to ask him a few questions about this release.         

What inspired you to make this expression?

I’ve always loved the high ester funky rums from around the world, every distillery who does one has their own take on it and they all have their own unique flavours and aromas, I wanted to see how it would turn out if we tried one, it’s still on the lower (ester) side compared to some from the likes of Jamaica but I’m really happy with the profile.

How long were you experimenting with fermentations until you were happy with it?

I’m always playing around with fermentations but we can only make this type of rum in the summer months when there is a bit of heat to help propagate the wild yeast and bacteria needed for acid and ester formation. We pick and choose portions from different distillations to make up the spirit for bottling so sometimes it can take months to find the balance and be happy.

How long was fermentation for this release?

The fermentations for this batch are between 3 and 6 weeks long. 5 batches of wash went into making this bottling.

Any dunder or muck involved?

There was, at least our version of muck. We don’t have any open holes in the ground but we do have our own version of a muck pit, sometimes referred to as our mature dunder.

Since this was a limited run, will you produce it again and if so, will it be the same?

We certainly will be making it again, I won’t say it will be exactly the same but our versions of this rum are getting more consistent so it won’t be far away. For me that’s part of the fun doing this type of thing, year to year it might vary given the nature of using wild yeast and relying on naturally occurring bacteria in the ferments.

Anything new and exciting at Islay Rum?

We have a lovely single cask release coming this month which will be around 390 bottles matured in sherry cask for just over 3 1/2 years. This is some of the older rum we currently have and it’s great to see how it’s progressed, it’s also nice to show people our rum matured in other wood beside ex whisky. We’ll be releasing this at a healthy 50% abv.

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At 242.1 gr/hlaa of esters it’s not at the level of Rum Fire, which is Hampden HLCF, so Islay Rum Overproof contains about half the esters of that one. However, this doesn’t tell you if one is better than the other. Just as a 15 year rum isn’t necessarily better than an 8 year old. It does give you an indication of the fruitiness or bat shit craziness of the rum.

Let’s look at the side by side. They are all 63%. I tasted them in two sessions on different days. Both times they were semi blind lineups. I typically don’t do that. Normally I’d only do one blind session and the second (and third) would be to double check everything. However in this case I made a huge mistake during the first tasting, which I will explain later. This made me want to test myself again.

The Cast

Wray & Nephew Overproof - 63%

Rum Fire - 63%

Rum Bar Overproof - 63%

Islay Rum Overproof - 63%

Nosing

Rum 1

Salty, brine, olives, light banana, strawberry, there is an entire series of berries of the red type coming by. Mineral stones, dried grass/hay, paint mixed with caramel, candle wax. There’s an undercurrent of acetone, but it’s subtle.

Rum 2

Very fruity, lots of olives, citrus, brine, pineapple, light paint, banana cake, slight metallic note. It’s a thick pot still nose that makes you want to bite the air.

Rum 3

Not super expressive this one. Earthy, peppery, light brine, pretty strong plastic, apple, light pineapple, bit metallic. The fruit is light on this one.

Rum 4

Much fruitier than rum 3, on par with rum 2 but with less olives. Mineral stones, brine, citrus, light paint, cardboard, olives, pineapple, red berries.

Rum 1 is my favourite nose, rum 3 the least favourite. I can’t choose between 2 and 4.

Tasting

Rum 1

Brine, pepper, light cheese and olives, light banana, very faint acetone, bread, coffee, marzipan, chocolate. For a second it felt like eating a coffee/marzipan chocolate filled with rum. The spicy finish is long lasting.

Rum 2

Strong on olives, brine, spearmint, banana, light metallic note, light cheese. Thick mouthfeel and a long finish.

Rum 3

Fairly subtle. Lots of brine, citrus, light raisins, light fruity notes.

Rum 4

Very fruity, slightly metallic, olives, bubble gum, banana, pineapple, light coffee, brine, acetone, light ginger. The finish lasts for ever.

It’s a toss up between rum one and four as my favourites.

Daiquiri challenge

Before revealing which is which, I felt it necessary to have a little daiquiri challenge with these rums to get the full picture. They are used a lot for cocktails after all. I’m not going into a lot of details, just a quick impression of each daiquiri.

Rum 1

It has less of the fruity citric flavours to battle the sugar, so it’s sweeter. Brown sugar vibe. Orange coming through. It’s good. Different from the rest, so a difficult comparison. Missing the fruit basket.

Rum 2

Almost too green, must be the olives. Banana, fruity. Nice, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Flavours are fighting with each other. I wouldn’t say no to one though. Finish is nice, thick, sweet and fruity. A bit metallic.

Rum 3

God this is good. Great balance. It just works. The best…..if it wasn’t for rum 4.

Rum 4

Super fruity, light, fun and refreshing. Great finish. Another one please!

Reveal

Rum 1 - Islay Rum Overproof

Rum 2 - Rum Bar Overproof

Rum 3 - Wray & Nephew Overproof

Rum 4 - Rum Fire

Conclusion

Putting Islay Rum Overproof up against these Jamaican giants doesn’t seem fair at first. A young Scottish distiller versus hundreds of years of Jamaican distilling experience. I’m glad I did however, as this Islay Rum expression can compete with the big boys and girls. It has a different flavour direction from the others . Slightly less fruity, less acetone, more into the darker/heavier realm of brine, chocolate, hay and bread. That’s the distillers choice. Doesn’t make it better or worse.

It’s a remarkable achievement. I’ve tried estery overproof rums from large and  small distilleries outside of Jamaica and it seems to be quite the minefield. Some really bad expressions where perhaps the focus is too much on the ester count and not so much on the type of esters. Different esters produce different flavours. It becomes a numbers game as opposed to focusing on quality, which is also a problem of many long aged rums by the way. I don’t know how a fairly inexperienced distiller like Ben Inglis has been able to get it right. But, that’s exactly what he did!

As a sipper I prefer Islay Rum and Rum Fire. They are simply the most interesting ones. But as a daiquiri, the lighter fruity notes of Rum Fire and Wray work better for me. Rum Bar wins the mouthfeel category. You just want to chew it! Wray & Nephew is the least interesting sipper, thanks to its more subdued nature. It almost seems balanced :). It’s good though, very good. For cocktails it provides a more blank canvas to build upon compared to the others.

Earlier, I mentioned a mistake I made in the first session. I actually thought Rum Bar was Rum Fire. I didn’t think this was possible, but that’s what happened. I was even more surprised about that mistake during my second session, where I immediately picked out Rum Fire because of its Hampden signature notes of acetone and pineapple. These things happen. Palates are different every day, every week, every year. It’s why blind tasting is so fascinating to do. It shows you how much we taste with our eyes and how much we don't know. It can be very embarrassing though, as shown above, so it’s best to do it at home where there is nobody to laugh at you.

Scores

Islay Rum Overproof – 87

Rum Bar Overproof – 87

Wray & Nephew Overproof – 86

Rum Fire – 90

By the way, some of you who have been following me for a while might remember another article about the same three Jamaican rums from 2021. That time it contained some notes from a couple of true rum celebrities in it as well. Click here if you want to check it out.