The Port Ellen of Rum. Caroni is one of those distilleries that will only get harder and harder to taste as time goes on, and with such a unique character, there is really no alternative to the real thing. This bottling for Adelphi’s 30th anniversary is one we have been looking forward to for a while now. That signature diesel note on the nose gives way to a decadent, gelatinised palate, that coats the tongue in a wonderful way. Awesome.
Official Tasting Notes:
Nose: Aged Riesling, old automobile, rum raisin, fresh ginger, tamarind, petrol, cracked leather, grapefruit pith, rhum baba, palm frond
Palate: Boozy Jaffa Cakes, Turkish Delight, bramble fruit, crème de menthe, mint chocolate chip ice cream, wood shavings, bitter chocolate, candied ginger
Finish: Long, intense, ever-changing
Adelphi is one of the world’s top independent bottlers of whisky. They acquire casks already matured to bottle, as opposed to maturing them themselves, and the Adelphi brand has been synonymous with top quality whisky for in the post-2000 era. The company also owns the Ardnamurchan distillery on Scotland’s east coast, which distilled its first spirit in 2014 and released its first single malt in 2020.
As Trinidad’s once-thriving rum industry began to shrink, the government sold a critical stake in Caroni’s rum arm to private distillery Angostura. Caroni as a whole, including rum production and a litany of other food-related activities, closed in 2003, with 9,000 workers retrenched from the national icon. With the country’s historic sugar cane industry essentially dead, it has been estimated that 35,000 people who were indirectly dependent on the plant suffered from its closure. The closure itself has been the subject of debate locally in Trinidad, as the plant was seen by some as a key part of the country’s agricultural industry. It has been argued that the demise of the distillery may have been political as much as it was caused by market forces. Caroni had both pot stills and column stills and produced a big, thick, sweet rum. While in production, the Caroni style was something of an industry secret that has since become an international fascination for rum drinkers since its closure. Following its closure, the remaining maturing stocks were acquired by Italian spirits importer Velier and French whisky merchants La Maison du Whisky, who have largely been responsible for the Caroni rums that have taken on a cult status in the past ten years.
