Review #84: Plantation Trinidad 1997

We tasted six Plantation rums in an ambitious sojourn to Smuggler’s cove and decided to do them blind (we took pictures of the bottles and ordered them #1-6 from left to right, so we were able to correlate them after the tasting). As geeky as it is to stand at a bar and take tasting notes with a notebook, it’s… kinda fun. Mostly, I figure everyone’s too drunk to care what we’re doing anyway.

The notes and scores were taken independently in our separate notebooks before we compared and did the big reveal. We had both ranked this bottle a tier above the other Plantation single cask releases (Barbados XO, Guyana 2008, Guatemala XO, Peru 2010, and Jamaica 2009). We mentioned our favorite to the staff there and were told it was what most of the other Cove members had also been saying. Of all the Plantations, this would be the bottle to pick buy without hesitation.

The dosage on this rum is very light – only 16 g/L and it was aged for 15.5 years in ex-bourbon casks before 6 years in Ferrand cognac casks, with a final 4 months in Kilchoman peated casks.

Quick overview of our scoring system

Additional Information

• ABV: 45.2%
• 22 years old total
• Raw Material: molasses
• Distillation: Pot still
• Ageing: 15.5 years in ex-bourbon (in the tropics), 6 years in Ferrand casks (in France), and 4 months maturation in Kilchoman peated whisky casks
• Dosage: 16 g/L
• Esters: 42 g/hL

About Plantation

• Alexandre Gabriel is the president and owner of Maison Ferrand and was also the originator of their rum line (Plantation).
• Plantation tend to age spirit in the tropics before returning it to France for cask finishing. They often incorporate some interesting finishes like Cognac casks.
• For Plantation, Alexandre spends several months of the year in the Caribbean sourcing rum from local producers to be sold under the Plantation label.