When Appleton Estate re-branded their rums in 2015 much was made of the move. The usual conspiracists hailed the blends must have all changed and been down graded.
To be honest this is a familiar and very boring critique which is immediately “asked” everytime a producer decides to re-brand. I found it particularly sad that a brand such as Appleton Estate would also be treat with such suspicion.
Kill Devil and Worthy Park have already been covered on the website. I was very keen to try out this 10 Year Old Jamaican Rum.
Kill Devil are part of Hunter Laing (an Independent Whisky bottler). This archaic slang term for Rum is used to brand their run of Single Cask rums.
It’s encouraging to see more and more Independent bottlers coming to the fore. Kill Devil offer very limited “one off” cask bottlings. These initial releases are not at Cask Strength, so far all releases have been capped at 46% ABV. This may upset some purists. I understand their next release of rums will be at Cask Strength.
J Wray and Nephew’s White Overproof Rum is highly acclaimed and widely available just about everywhere.
Further down the ABV scale J Wray and Nephew also bottle this entry level Jamaican Appleton Rum. Like the Special Appleton Jamaica Rum this is not bottled as part of the Estate series and as a result does not benefit from the wonderful stubby bottle treatment.
Rum-Bar Gold is a barrel aged Jamaican Rum from the Worthy Park Estate. The Estate has been involved in Sugar Production since 1720.
However, due to events described in this interview, I conducted with Alexander Kong they have been absent from the Rum Market until fairly recently.
Back in 2004/5 they set about building a new state of the art distillery in order to begin producing rum again. In 2007 they introduced their White Overproof to the domestic market and have now added a Gold rum and a Rum Cream to their portfolio. In order to help pay for the state of the art distillery Worthy Park have also sold “bulk” rum to other bottlers.
From what I understand Appleton Special isn’t widely available in a lot of territories. It is freely available in the UK though.
Rather than being special as such, it is Appleton’s entry level rum. It comes in both a Gold and White expression. It should be noted that whilst this is an Appleton rum it doesn’t have the Appleton Estate moniker. Yes, its of course from the same distillery but it seems Appleton wish to make a distinction between this and the Estate’s entry level rum – V/X. It is notably absent from the Appleton Estate website and rumours have it that it may be being discontinued. If those rumours are true I may have to invest in a few more bottles soon!
Appleton Estate Extra is the “Ultra Premium rum in the Appleton Estate family and it is touted as unsurpassed masterpiece of oak ageing”. Now I’m not one for re-producing a companies marketing material but I will make an exception in this instance.
The marketing material continues “As a Minimum Age rum Appleton Estate Extra 12 Year Old has been aged for a MINIMUM of 12 years in select American Oak Barrels”.
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Mezan’s 2003 Jamaica Rum comes from the Monkymusk Distillery. Monymusk is Jamaica’s oldest sugar and rum estate. It has been producing rum for over 200 years and was named after Scottish Baronet Sir Archibald Grant’s estate in his home country.