This is a bit of an interesting one, as was the Foursquare from a few days ago. The Foursquare was matured in both bourbon casks (fairly regular) and sherry casks (fairly unique). This one is matured in Armagnac casks, even more out of the ordinary than the sherry casks were. I wonder how this works out, because this is a pretty different distillate compared to what rum is.

Again, this is a bottling from The Duchess, a Dutch bottler makeing ways into the world of rum, and to a somewhat lesser extent, the world of whisky. They sent me a sample to get some exposure, fully knowing that my views are my own. The booze is sponsored, the review is not.

While that sounds ominous, it’s just to get some of the ‘newer readers’, if they exist, in the know about how these sent samples work.

I don’t know much about Diamond Distillery, apart from that I’ve tasted rum from them before, in a pretty shit bottle share I did some years ago. In this case I blame myself for the lower quality level of the share, since I didn’t pick many good bottles then, while knowing there’s much better out there.

Let’s see what this one is about.

Sniff:
Wow! That Armagnac cask is there! A very ‘young fruity’ distillate is quite noticable. The rum sweetness is behind that all, but there’s not much of it.

Sip:
Quite sharp, even though it’s a lot less sharp. The fruit distillate is pushed back a bit, with very dry, and very not-sweet rum. Sugar cane with it’s grassy flavors.

Swallow:
More of the grassy notes. Lots of green flavors, grass, parsley, herbs. Sugar cane, molasses.

So, there’s two sides to this rum. I love the fact that it’s been matured in a cask that’s rather experimental. It makes for a pretty unique drink and something different to try. However, I think the Armagnac overpowers the rum to a too big extent. The fruit distillate is very, very present and pushes out the more typical rum flavors.

What is a very sizeable redeeming factor is that this is available for € 95, which is pretty cheap for a 20 year old rum!

80/100

Diamond Distillery 20 years old, 1998-2019, Guyana, Armagnac Cask #27, 50.8%

Sample kindly provided by Best of Wines.