Frigate 21 Year Reserve Rum

The 21 was the first Frigate made — the recipe every younger bottle in the line is dialed down from, and, in one Rum Ratings reviewer's words, a truly fine dry rum. Frigate Reserve began when a group of investors from Abaco and Walker's Cay in the Bahamas went to Panama, got access to the reserve casks of Don Pancho Fernández — the Cuban-born master blender behind Zafra and a prolific run of private-label rums — and blended thousands of combinations before what the company calls an epiphanal moment with the current 21. It's column-distilled from Panamanian molasses, drawn straight from Don Pancho's reserve casks aged twenty-one years, and bottled at 40% ABV in a long-necked onion bottle modeled on a 1600s rum bottle that washed ashore on Abaco. Frigate says its soul is in the 21: richness, smoothness, just enough sweetness to taste. Rum Ratings' reviewer, after twenty minutes in the snifter, found caramel with no burn on the nose or the way down, then mild oak and caramel — reminiscent of Admiral Rodney's HMS Princessa, and much better than Centenario 18. Another found it very sweet up front, Zacapa XO-like, with toffee and butterscotch. Honest note, and it's the same reviewer's: side by side with the 15, the 21 isn't worth twice the price — it's the flagship for the collector and the gift. A dollar per bottle went to Abaco's Hurricane Dorian recovery. Neat, in a snifter, with time.

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