Plantation Haiti XO.  A Single Cask bottling for the Mercury Bar.  The Mercury Bar is a bar/restaurant in London W4 as far as I am aware anyway.  It could be a number of other places all around the world.  Until I’m told otherwise I’ll stick with the one in London.

Plantation Haiti XO is a rum from (I presume) Haitian distillery Barbancourt.  It was aged for 8 years in the tropical climate of Hait in ex-bourbon casks.  It was then transferred to France where it was aged for a further 3 years in White Pineau “Ferrand” casks.  White Pineau is a French Fortified Wine.

My bottle is number 130 from Cask Number 1.  I am not sure how many bottles or how many casks of this single cask rum where made.  “Surely its just one cask if its Single?” I hear you say.  Maybe….but I’ve seen the term misused often and I’ve seen these Limited Editions pop up all over the world.

I picked this up at the travelling Rum Festivals in Newcastle.  Bottled at 41% ABV this is as far as I understand a pot/column blend. As with most Plantation bottlings the Hydrometer reveals 16g/L of additives.  Which I know to be the aged sugar syrup Plantation have showed me at past Rum Festivals.

My only real experience of Haitian rum has been the Barbancourt 5 star which I enjoyed immensely.  Other than that it has only been the Haitian Clairin’s.  I’m expecting a great deal in common with those when trying this rum.  If indeed there is then I would suggest something has went very badly wrong with the ageing of this product.

I’ve covered Plantation at great length in the past.  I’ve experienced the good, the bad and the ugly amongst their bottlings.  From the sublime in the shape of the Barbados 12 Year Wild Cherry Finish to the worst Jamaican rum I have ever tried the Jamaica 2000.  So without further ado I’ll let you all know how I found this one

In the glass Plantation Haiti XO Is a dark brown with shimmers of red and orange. Nosing the Plantation Haiti XO is a strange experience. It is a very distinctive rum. It is unlikely you will have experienced a nose quite like it before. It’s very sweet – almost cloyingly at times. Strong notes of boiled strawberry flavour sweets and a very sweet caramel note.

There is a kind of Barbancourt/Haitian like note trying to get out from the sweetness but it just jars against the Pineau – making it quite unpleasant. It’s almost as if the Pineau has tried to hide the medicinal notes of the rum and they have succeeded only in creating a very strange and frankly weird nose.

It’s odd and some people may quite like the nose but I just found it strange and to be honest pretty unpleasant.

Sipping the Plantation Haiti XO I was hoping the strange sweetness might disappear.It does a little in that you aren’t nosing it anymore. The initial burst is pretty sweet and has a strange herbal kind of note to it. I really don’t like this. The rum reveals itself a little more in the mid palate but it just fades out from a slight spiciness and the odd hint of more vegetal notes into a pretty short and frankly unpleasant drink.

It’s really difficult to explain this rum as I haven’t experienced a taste quite like it before. Forget about getting an alternative to Barbancourt. This is more like weird Spiced Rum. Plantation do occasionally get things wrong – this is definitely one of those times. This is really rather unpleasant.

The finish is cloying and unpleasant with a weird herbal not which again clashes with the sweetness. It’s almost as like when you use Air Freshener to hide the smell and you only succeed in creating two horrible smells fighting against each other.

You’ll struggle to find this bottling – you may find something similar as they have several rums from Haiti available. I think a number of the “Single Casks” might well be very similar rums.

Personally I wouldn’t go searching for this one though.

1 star