Calibre Spirit Australian Rum

Description

There is nothing more special than watching passion and commitment manifest into a sensational product from people you know. In this case, a Single Cask, Single Origin rum made to the ‘Rhum Batterie’ tradition – The Calibre Spirit Australian Rum! It was award winning at 4 years old, and EXCLUSIVE to the Tribe we have an additional 2 years of mainland (Canberra) maturation!

The modestly named Calibre Spirit Australian Rum is based the ‘Rhum Batterie’ style of French Caribbean rum where the wash is made of sugarcane juice that has been ‘candied’ or ‘caramelised’ with heat prior to having water and yeast added. This caramelisation of the sugars gives added depth to the resulting rum. In this case, the fermented wash was then distilled in a hybrid pot/column still (a batch still with a pot base and an attached rectifying column, allowing the distiller to make precise heads, hearts, and tails cuts while achieving higher purity in a single distillation run.)

The resulting new make was then matured in a single 500l medium-toast French oak cask. A portion (around 100 bottles) of this cask was decanted and bottled in 2024 – that release winning Silver at the Royal Melbourne Awards in the same year. Now, two years down the track he had bottled what remained in the cask – fully 6 years old now.

I met Andy Moore back in 2019 when we were both working the same table at a Whisky Live event in Melbourne. We fast became friends that weekend, and that friendship solidified over subsequent festivals etc that year and since then. Andy was (and still is) working a full time gig in the defence force whilst also being a silent early investor in some Australian whisky distilleries. He’s been quietly ‘working into’ the industry since then on his own terms with his brand Calibre Spirit – presently as an indy-bottler, but he’s also recently acquired a still and is currently ‘gearing up’ to produce his own spirit in his own still.

On a personal note, I’m certainly looking forward to sampling all facets if his upcoming distilling journey, and I’m sure this won’t be the last time we see one of Andy’s Calibre Spirit Rums on our playlist!

Our Tasting Notes

Nose: A creamy herbaceousness with fruit mince, flambéed figs (there’s definitely just the smallest pinch of ‘burnt edges’ – from that caramelisation perhaps?), some petrichor, well-worn leather and just a hint of underlying campfire smoke

Palate: The alcohol is incredibly well integrated here with little to no pepper on the palate (large format, quality cask for the win!) lots of succulent stewed fruits and fruit mince with some anise, mint and Dutch liquorice notes too.

Finish: Turns rather dry in this deliciously explorable finish – the sweet fruitiness of the palate becomes more spice-driven as more of those anise-type flavours come through, mild clovey-ness the leather notes form the nose return with espresso coffee and super-high-cocao chocolate and a slight oaky mustiness.

Whilst I did taste the (Silver Medal Winning) 4yo version of this rum it was a good 2 years ago now (that’s a LOT of rum under the bridge since then, after all) so I can’t really compare it to this 1/3 older again reiteration. I can say I was bloody impressed 2 years ago – and am certainly no less intrigued and captivated by this 6yo version. The caramelization of the sugar syrup is definitely (to this guy, anyway) noticeable – not ‘in your face, blow your mind’ noticeable, but it’s certainly there.