Mount Gay 1703 Old Cask Selection Rum 70 cl

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I agree that wood and maturation are a very important aspect, but personally I am not that excited about different casks. I wish it would be more about the distillate itself. As good as all the releases by Foursquare are, I think they play Sipped the sweetness is dialled down a little. There is a nice spicy entry which is quite woody – ginger and a little hint towards a charred barrel and a little fire to the sweeter brown sugar and toffee notes. Sounds good, but how do the new bottlings fare? Let’s taste (including a comparison against a 2008 vintage bottle of Mount Gay Extra Old).

Mount Gay 1703 Master Select | Rum Ratings Mount Gay 1703 Master Select | Rum Ratings

Golden brown in colour. The nose is full of chewy toffee, banana, caramel, brown sugar and that signature coconut. The ageing process is particularly unpredictable in the tropical Caribbean climate, and at Mount Gay, we prefer to talk about maturing. In two or three years, our rums can reach the same level of maturity as an eau-de-vie aged for two or three times as long in a temperate climate. Mt Gay I expect to do some really interesting things in the near future because they have just rebuilt and installed a classic Savalle column in their batch production area which gives them some flexibility for blending. They are also doing a lot more cane management so I expect some juice distillates to come onstream in the next few years. Mount Gay co-ferments local and imported molasses. The proprietary yeast strain is based off a captured wild yeast, which Mount Gay’s team then bred for consistency. You’ll know a Mount Gay fan when you see them.

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The island of Barbados is formed of coral limestone, a porous stone, which acts as a natural filter for the groundwater deep beneath the island. Thus filtered, this water is some of the purest in the world. Mount Gay Eclipse: An aged rum developed in 1911 and named for the total solar eclipse and the passage of Halley's comet in 1910.

Review: Mount Gay Black Barrel Rum and XO Rum (2020) Review: Mount Gay Black Barrel Rum and XO Rum (2020)

Big and punchy it isn’t but it is a rum which has been developed by a master blender that knows his rums strengths and he’s very much playing to them. Compared to Jamaica for example, there are very few pure pot still rums from Barbados, and what little we have got comes all from the independent bottlers (with the deceased Mount Gilboa and the Mount Gay Origins as the only exceptions I am aware of). Mount Gay XO has been “enriched with a broader palette of rums selected, individually aged in three different casks – American Whiskey, Bourbon and Cognac – for five to 17 years, rather than the previous eight to 15 years. The adjustments to the blend aim to enhance the liquid’s ultimate complexity.”Barbados is one of the most densely populated island nations in the world. Hundreds of years ago, Mount Gay could rely on the molasses from local sugar cane for all of its needs, but that’s no longer the case as there simply isn’t enough available land anymore. In addition, while there used to be nearly 40 sugarcane refineries on the island, only one remains active today. So, although the distillery relies on sugarcane sourced from around the Caribbean, it only imports varieties that are native to Barbados. Nose: Very intense, sweet and pleasant. It smells of vanilla, coconut, wood and a slight smokiness. The coconut notes are particularly good. Its not very spicy. There is interaction with the wood but it doesn’t seem to have developed beyond a little buttery spiciness. This is a light and sweet bajan style of rum which has a wonderful balance to it. Final Thoughts: Proof that rum can hold its own against other spirits as a respectable high end spirit. Lovely, complex but subtle, nuanced and a wonderful rum to sip and contemplate. They have four pots of two similar types, so definitely can produce different marques, but I strongly suspect the Barbados culture works against them for that – Barbados likes low ABV blended rum and traditional production has accommodated that. At Mt Gay they focus on consistency for export, and they also significantly reduce prior to ageing which will limit their ability to make higher ABV releases for a long time, though they do age the pot and column marques separately so can do pure still releases as the origin series showed.

Mount Gay XO Triple Cask Blend : The Whisky Exchange Mount Gay XO Triple Cask Blend : The Whisky Exchange

Flavour: Slightly sweet and smoky. It is very mild and does not burn on the palate at all. I could detect vanilla, spices (cloves, nutmeg), coconut, butterscotch, cocoa and a slight woodiness. Mount Gay Rum is made from molasses and water that has been filtered through natural coral. This mix is fermented using an exclusively selected yeast and then distilled in both copper pot stills and column stills, before being aged in oak barrels. The little red star on the image of the island on Mount Gay Rum's former bottle label represents the capital of Barbados, Bridgetown, not the location of the distilleries, which are actually in the northern part of the island. [8] [9] In the Bridgetown area, Mount Gay maintains the Mount Gay Rum Visitors Centre on the Spring Garden Highway in Brandons, St. Michael. [10] [11] The Mount Gay Visitor's Center is a tourist attraction that hosts several tours and events. [12] The company throughout the 20th century was in the hands of the Ward family in the parish of St. Peter. The Ward family resides in the northernmost parish of St. Lucy, where they have extensive agricultural holdings. The last Ward family member to managed the distillery was Frank Ward, who also the Executive Chairman of the West Indies Rum and Spirits Producers Association.It’s all very nice and polite and very nicely balanced. But its just not overly exciting. I think at this price point we need more from Mount Gay. They need to get out of that comfort zone. A re-brand is all very nice but they must be looking at Foursquare. St Lucia Distillers, Worthy Park and even Plantation and thinking – we must spice things up. We need to change, innovate, maybe try some different finishes – up the ABV (this is 43%) and just offer something more exciting and more 2018. The distillery currently features four different types of stills: small Spanish and Scottish pot stills, a Coffey column still, which was introduced in the 1970s, and the most recent addition, an Irish column still. Though the distillery’s first Coffey still only dates to the 1970s, other column designs were added to the mix around the time of American Prohibition. No matter what still is being used, all distillates are co-fermented (more on that right below). There’s something familiar in the air. Contrary to popular belief the year 1703 is not the year Rum was first distilled on the island of Barbados. Mount Gay is often cited as the first Rum Distillery. It was the first legally recognised distillery but the noble spirit was produced much earlier than this date on Barbados. Today, Mount Gay rums are matured in lightly charred American oak barrels that have previously been used to age American whiskey.