Secret Distillery #1 Batch 3 That Boutique-y Rum Company – November 2020
BOOM! Another brand-new rum to Australia! From a single undisclosed distillery in Jamaica (*cough* *cough* Worthy Park 😊). ‘That Boutique-y Rum Company’ have for the very first time allowed some of their much awaited ‘Secret Distillery #1’ into Australia and we are delighted to be offering members of the Rum Tribe first dibs! So we are very proud to present – That Boutique-Y Rum Company ‘Secret Distillery #1’ Batch 3 as our November Rum of the Month.
Only 872 individually numbered bottles have been produced of this fantastic rum and as you can imagine, very little of that number is coming to Oz, which is why we’re super happy to have nabbed the entire Australian allocation for our members!
That Boutique-Y Rum Company has similar tastes to us here at The Rum Tribe – a love of pot-stills and a focus on transparency in labelling. For example, though such things as sugar and caramel can be used in rum production, there is no requirement to state this for the consumer – and we (along with Peter) think this is plain wrong! At That Boutique-y Rum Company they are all about delicious, unusual and honest rums, which means they adopt a no BS approach to classification. You won’t hear them talking about dark and light rums, but you will hear them getting excited over everything from pot still rums from single distilleries to multi-column rums from multiple distilleries. In other words – they focus on ‘specifics’, not cliched generalities.
The Secret Distillery #1 Batch 3 is a single origin Jamaican rum (Worthy Park) that has been aged exclusively in ex-bourbon casks for 9 years (6 years in Jamaica and 3 more in TBRC’s bond store in the UK, then bottled at 53.8% abv. It follows on from Batches 1 & 2 from the same distillery – but sadly none of these earlier batches made it to our shores.
If you’re wondering about the bottle label – each sphere denotes one aspect/ingredient of rum production. The large sphere is cane, then demerara sugar, molasses, unaged rum and aged rum.
Our Tasting Notes:
Nose: Unmistakable funk which definitely points the finger towards this being a product from the Trelawny region of Jamaica, and no other than Worthy Park. The ripe banana, a little spice and raisins hits you immediately, then the tropical fruit platter creeps in / overripe mango and pineapple and a slight hint of ginger.
Palate: Immediate fruity notes, ripe banana, pineapple and guava. Burnt sugar then on the back of the pallet leaves you with toffee and butterscotch.
FROM THE BOTTLERS
Secret Distilleries are the way that Boutique-y Rum’s can tie a Rum back to a particular source, but still honouring the producers right to protect their trademarked name.
Secret Distillery #1 can be found in Lluidas Vale, in the parish of St. Elizabeth, and for anyone who has sipped a few of their Rums then you’ll quickly recognise the tropical fruit, pineapple, sweet acetone type notes that are particular to them. Our 9-Year-Old Batch 3 release is a delicious example of a Rum that has spent most of its time maturing at source, with a few years here in the UK before being bottled. Rich, full bodied, with tropical fruit notes, with a firm caress of oak – this is an absolute delight that is likely to be enjoyed by seasoned rummy and beginner alike!
Nose: Bright, sweet banana, and sticky toffee pudding
Palate: Banana, tamarind, overripe pear and hints of butterscotch.
Finish: Toffee intertwined with green tea, prickly, peppery and lasting.
Overall: Straight off the bat, this is a mouth-filling lovely, characterful rum that is immediately, and instantly recognisable by fans of this distillery.
ABOUT THE DISTILLERY
The Worthy Park Estate is a sugar producer and distiller of rum that has been producing said sugar and rum since the inception of the Jamaican sugar industry 275 years ago. In the late 50’s and 60’s falling worldwide sugar prices along with the proliferation of large-scale, modern and efficient distilleries elsewhere saw a number of Jamaican distilleries close their operations. One of these was the Worthy Park Distillery which shut it’s doors in 1960 to concentrate on sugar production.
And concentrate they did. Over the next 45 years Worthy Park Estate gradually upgraded their farming practices and modernised their production facilities becoming perhaps the most advanced and efficient Sugar production operation in Jamaica, if not the world.
In the late 1990’s it was decided by the family (yes, still owned by the original family), led by fourth generation family-member Gordon Clarke, that distillation could viably re-commence on the Worthy Park Estate! Instead of restoring the old distillery it was decided that a whole new facility would be constructed. In 2005 they started building the new distillery and the first of the ‘new’ Worthy Park rums was bottled in 2007. Not too shabby, eh!
Worthy Park Estate age and bottle most of their own rum – but they do sell a fair volume to independent bottlers which is where Peter Holland and the Boutique-y Rum Company come into the picture. For those who may not be aware, an independent bottler is someone who buys [in this case] rums directly from the either the distillery (and then ages it themselves), or selects casks that have been aged by rum wholesalers and blenders. They find the casks they like, blend them (or, indeed bottle them as single cask rums) bottle them and brand them.
The Boutiqe-y company started as ‘The Boutique-y Whisky Company’ – independently ageing and bottling single malt whiskies from various distilleries around the globe and then selling them under their own brand. After winning multiple gold medals for their whiskies, and earning the respect of the global whisky community, they have branched out into gins and (most importantly) rums!
TBRC enlisted the services of talented barman and blender – and lover of rum – Peter Holland (of ‘thefloatingrumshack.com’) and he now has the enviable job of cask selection and blending for TBRC.
