The One Rum Our Buyer is Sipping Right now: Worthy Park

Getting back into rum production after a 45 year hiatus, the Worthy Park distillery first began releasing rum again under the Rum-Bar label in Jamaica in 2007. Although the US has gotten hints of what they've been up to through independent bottlers (if you've had Hamilton Jamaican, The Funk, or Doctor Bird, you've had Worthy Park), the company was waiting for their first premium bottling to mature before they made their official debut. Over the last 10 years their 100% pot-still distilled rum has been aging in ex-Bourbon barrels. Made from sugarcane grown on their own estate and molasses made in-house and brought to the distillery in an underground pipe over a half-mile long, this cane to glass rum is blended from two distillations. The first uses a lower ester mash made over a 30-hour fermentation, the other is distilled from a high ester mash that ferments over 2-3 weeks, helped along by natural yeast from the same used cane stalks that make the molasses.

This Worthy Park Estate Reserve Rum release contains rums aged from 6-10 years. Bottled at 45% ABV without any added sugars, it comes off as intensely powerful yet elegant. Think Serena Williams at the US Open in that incredible tutu. A touch funkier than Appleton Estate, there's classic Jamaican hogo on the nose, then a detour of soft ginger, coconut, malted grain, black tea and orange peel. The hogo comes back on the finish, along with wet oak notes, tobacco, and mellow spice. It hits you, but feels like a kiss.

This bottling is a permanent addition to the Worthy Park lineup, and we'll be doing our best to keep it around. The powers that be don't seem to think there's much of a market for delicious and well-aged Jamaican rums though, they've brought an insanely small number of cases in to get things started. If you'd like to have a bottle for yourself in the near future, get one soon.