Hamilton Saint Lucia 8 Year Cask Strength Rum

Rum Revelations wrote a love story about this rum — and it's the Saint Lucian cask Ed Hamilton bought six barrels of. Hamilton is the Ministry of Rum: the sailor, author, and importer who spent decades documenting Caribbean distilleries and then began bottling their rums unsweetened, honestly labeled, and with batch numbers that unlock full production details online. Between 2013 and 2015 he released a handful of cask-strength single casks from St. Lucia Distillers, the island's only distillery, and then stopped; nothing has been added since. The 8 Year came off SLD's 2,000-liter Vendome pot still in 2006, aged in ex-bourbon oak on the island, and was bottled in 2015 from six casks — 124 cases, 1,488 bottles — with nothing added, at cask strength; the reviewed batch read 62.1%, and check your label. Rum Revelations found it oaky with eucalyptus, pine, pineapple, furniture wax, honey, cigars, and newspaper, very briny, mineral, and meaty like molasses-glazed meat, with underlying sweetness and strong leather — more herbal and heavier on the meat than the 9. Rum Ratings scores the 2005 8 Year a rare 10.0. Honest note: Saint Lucian funk is its own thing — industrial, savory, and dense rather than fruity — and one Inu A Kena commenter found it not to their taste while loving the 9; this is a collector's cask priced for scarcity. Neat, with water, slowly.

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