Cane Island Trinidad Distillers 8 Year Old Single Estate Trinidad Rum (700ml)

Cane Island is associated with Infinity Spirits, a developer and supplier of rum brands based in the Netherlands. The company has been buying, blending and bottling rums from around the world for around ten years. The Trinidad 8 year old is part of their ‘Single Estate Series’, sourced from Trinidad Distillers Limited (TDL). If you haven’t heard of TDL, it’s much, much more commonly known as Angostura Distillery, which we bet you have heard of. The molasses used is sourced from outside the country as the last sugar refinery in Trinidad and Tobago closed down in 2007. It's now shipped in from Guyana, the Dominican Republic and Fiji.  Fermented for between 48-56 hours using their own proprietary yeast strain, the rum is put through TDL’s five-column still with heavy spirit being tapped at around 80% ABV from the first column. A much lighter spirit is tapped from the fifth, while several medium-bodied spirits are taken from other points on the stills and used for blending. All are aged separately in ex-bourbon (Jack Daniels & Four Roses) casks before bottling. Cane Island are quite open about sugar and colour – they add around 10g/l of sugar and may use E150 (caramel) to colour their rums for consistency. We applaud their transparency!

Notes from the importers... Nose: Mashed banana, stone fruit , stewed apple and pastry – like bakery apple slice. Palate: Lovely visocus mouthfeel – coats the whole palate instantly. Sweet tinned prunes with chocolate notes, salted caramel, liquorice, coffee and vanilla custard. Finish: Sweet and easy with a nice mild pepper to offset. The fruit and spice notes really last and that slight pepper walks with them the whole way. This is a truly easy going and most sippable rum.  Whilst sweetened – it’s not overly sweet, and the pepper really offsets that nicely.  A very approachable rum that won’t scare  a ‘newbie’ with new and unfamiliar notes, but with enough complexity and great balance to satisfy a season rum drinker. 43% Alc./Vol.