Clairin Ansyen Vaval 39 Month Sherry Cask Rum

Clairin is Haiti's wild cane spirit — fresh sugarcane juice, spontaneously fermented with whatever yeasts are in the air, pot-distilled in the villages, unaged and unfiltered — and Vaval is the one from Fritz Vaval's distillery in Cavaillon, in the south, made from the Madame Meuze cane variety. Ansyen ("old" in Kreyol) is what happens when Velier, the Italian importer that brought clairin to the world, puts it in a barrel. This is a single cask: Vaval clairin from the 2017 harvest, aged 39 months in an Oloroso sherry cask — cask VA17OL-4, selected by Katy Perry of La Maison & Velier's US team — and bottled at cask strength; check your label for the exact ABV and outturn. Rum Ratings' reviewer, a lover of agricole and Jamaican funk who'd been afraid oak would tame clairin's wild, grassy, overripe character, found it did not — not even a little — and may have enhanced it. Expect the Vaval signature — green cane, olive brine, overripe fruit, a savory funk — wrapped in the sherry cask's dried fig, walnut, and nutty oxidation, with the tannin adding structure and the proof carrying it all, finishing very long and complex. Honest note: this is a connoisseur's bottle — rare, cask-strength, and uncompromisingly funky — for drinkers who've had the unaged Vaval and want to hear it in a sherry cask. Neat, with a drop of water. One cask; when it's gone, it's gone.

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