Worthy Park 109 Dark Rum

Worthy Park 109 was going to be called Gunpowder Proof — until, The Lone Caner reports, the label ran into trouble and the number took over. Worthy Park Estate in the St. Catherine hills of Jamaica has grown cane since 1670 and made rum since the 1740s; it stopped in 1962 amid a postwar glut and, after the Clarke family built a modern distillery in 2005, relaunched with the Rum-Bar range. 109 was announced in 2020 to fill the gap between the Rum-Bar bottles and the Single Estate releases with something darker, aged, and stronger for the cocktail circuit — and, The Lone Caner notes, the specs make it hard not to see Smith & Cross in the crosshairs. It's 100% pot-still rum from estate molasses, distilled on the Forsyth double-retort still, aged three years in once-used ex-bourbon barrels, blended, and bottled at 54.5% ABV — the old navy strength, 109 proof — with no additives, in a dark, tiki-friendly bottle. Difford's confirms the three-year, full-bodied, high-proof pot-still spec. Expect the Worthy Park signature — caramelized banana, tropical fruit, and a gentle ester funk — with three years of oak adding caramel, vanilla, and toasted wood, dense and warm at the proof. Honest note: Rum Revelations, a Worthy Park devotee, calls it a caramel bomb neat and aimed at cocktail drinkers — which is the brief. For a Mai Tai, a Jungle Bird, a Navy Grog, a Kingston Negroni, or a Rum Old Fashioned with backbone, it's Worthy Park at fighting strength.

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