Mhoba Rum Comparison: The Shaldon - High Ester - Velier 2025

Mhoba rums from South Africa are not for the faint of heart. Drinking super fruity, grassy, "vegetally", sometimes oily (how about diesely), high abv cane juice rum isn’t for everyone. This is fine of course, it’s serving a niche after all.

I once described Mhoba’s style as “a gentleman from Martinique meeting a gorgeous Jamaican lady who then decide to have a baby together”. As a basic description, I think it covers their profile quite well, certainly if you have to introduce Mhoba to someone who’s never tasted any of their expressions. However, the cynic in me says this phrase might be suggesting they are simply copying two very well known styles of rum. After trying many of their releases over the years and visiting the distillery in South Africa I can say with a high degree of certainty that there is much more to Mhoba rum than that. Apart from their uniqueness in processes and equipment (designed and made their own stills and sugar cane press for example) and having a genius mad rum professor at the helm, I also believe Mhoba has their own signature. By that I mean you can tell a rum is a Mhoba expression when you smell and taste it, in most cases. That might seem like an insignificant thing, but I think it’s a real accomplishment. There are so many rums out there that are somewhat generic. You get them in a blind tasting and have no idea where to place them in the world. Not so with Mhoba. That doesn’t automatically mean all their rums are great, but name me a distillery that only produces greatness for each and every person on this planet.

One of the rums in this tasting is The Shaldon. Named after one of owner Robert’s staff members. The term staff members is not really appropriate here. Prodigy would be better. When I was at the distillery, the first (and only) impression I got of Shaldon was that he was super eager, intelligent, polite, humble, crazy about rum and very hard working. Basically the ideal employee. The fact that a rum is named after him tells you how much he’s appreciated and respected.

The story of how this rum came to North America heavily involves Eric Kaye, owner of Holmes Cay rums, with a tiny bit of input from yours truly when we were in South Africa together. I asked Eric to refresh my terrible memory on how that went exactly. The following short and sweet text conversation was the result:

Ivar:”What’s your involvement with The Shaldon again?”

Eric:”We import it to the States and you and I decided it should be a product.”

Ivar:”How did we decide that?”

Eric:”We tasted it and said “this is fucking great, bottle this!”

Sometimes life can be so simple!

The second rum is another unaged Mhoba rum, but bottled by Italian company Velier. Its owner, Luca Gargano, is well known in the rum community for choosing great spirits to bottle. Distilled in 2025 and bottled at 62%.

Last and certainly not least is the Mhoba High Ester, which has been on the market for a while. I figured it would fit well in this comparison. Fermentation time for this one is 22 days and it was distilled in 2018. There have been other High Ester releases after this one, so batch differences will be a thing of course.

The Cast

Velier Mhoba 2025 – 62%

Mhoba The Shaldon – 63%

Mhoba High Ester – Batch 2019HE1 – 65%

Nosing

Velier Mhoba 2025

Ripe banana while I also smell unripe (very green) fruit, glue, olives, brine, grass, paint, sugar cane juice. It reminds me of walking into a horse stable.

Mhoba The Shaldon

Sour milk, acetone, plastic, heavy on olives, light rice cookies, cardboard, light bubble gum, pineapple, cheese and there’s the horse stable again. This got remarkably better when I left it in a glass for 45 minutes.

Mhoba High Ester

Plastic, acetone, very fruity, light compost, light cheese, citrus, red berries, light paint. Not as thick as the other two and more towards the fruity side than the olive and cheese side.

Tasting

Velier Mhoba 2025

Plastic olives??? Blue cheese, brine, light acetone, earthy, green cardboard, pineapple, somewhat sour, metallic, is that cow dung on the finish??? It’s slightly bitter. Solid finish.

Mhoba The Shaldon

Pineapple, hay, very strong olives, pickles, wet grass, acetone. Long finish, although shorter than High Ester. Thicker mouthfeel than the Velier and not bitter.

Mhoba High Ester

It’s quite grassy at first, giving me agricole vibes until the funk kicks in. Plastic, orange, banana, light olives, all sorts of berry action, pineapple. Finish is eternal. Not as thick of a mouthfeel as the other two. It’s a little more neutral, if you can even use that word for a Mhoba, which makes it an easier base for a cocktail.

Conclusion

These white rums are on the more extreme side of the flavour spectrum and are serving a small percentage of an already small rum community. A drop in a bucket, so to speak. Mhoba’s aged expressions are a lot more approachable and definitely more in my wheelhouse. Velier’s 2025 Mhoba was my least favourite. Too many notes in there that I don’t appreciate, combined with some bitterness. I think people who love the more extreme Mexican rums might like it though. The Shaldon has a lot more good than bad when it comes to the flavour profile. The mouthfeel is also thicker and it doesn’t have the bitterness. An excellent and intriguing rum that will please the more adventurous sippers and cocktail enthusiasts.

Lastly, Mhoba High Ester is not as expressive as the other two and mouthfeel wise it’s in between The Shaldon and Velier 2025. I feel the flavour profile is more balanced however. It’s a great medley without going into the extremes too much. Which is why it’s the winning one for me. It’s very sippable (certainly with a few drops of water) and can also work well in a cocktail, providing a slightly more blank canvas to build a cocktail on than the others. To be very clear, when I say “not as expressive” I mean in the Mhoba rumiverse. It’s much more flavourful than Wray & Nephew for example. Rum Fire is a closer comparable. Another thought is that the Velier and The Shaldon are greener, more into the realm of olives and cheese. I simply prefer a more straight forward fruity profile. It’s a personal choice.

As always, we definitely need more Mhoba in our lives!

Scores

Velier Mhoba 2025 – 79

Mhoba The Shaldon – 82

Mhoba High Ester – 84

Click here for info on the scoring method.

Click here for the complete list of reviews.