That Boutique-y Rum Company Travellers Distillery Belize 10 Year Old. I haven’t covered an awful lot of rums from the Travellers Distillery, Belize. This is mainly due to the fact that the distilleries own brands such as One Barrel are more often than not “dosed” with additives in some way.

So although I have seen a number of rums from Belize being bottled by Independent bottlers such as Boutique-y Rum Company I have never felt the urge to pick one up. I really didn’t like Travellers One Barrel rum and its really tainted by view of rums from that part of the world.

However, I like to give everything a second (or even third) chance so I thought I would give this rum a spin.

As mentioned already this is a rum from the Travellers Distillery in Belize. Which is a Central American country on the edge of the Caribbean sea. It is bordered by Mexico and Guatemala.

The rum in question today is noted as being a “Traditional Column Rum”. So it has been produced on a column still but not I assume a huge multi column industrial style still. A more authentic column still?

Travellers produce rum from molasses and age their rums in charred oak barrels. This particular rum was distilled in October 2007 and it spent 8 years ageing in Belize. It was moved to Europe and re-filled in a ex-bourbon cask for the final two years of ageing. The rum has an ABV of 56.1% which must be Cask Strength or very near to it. It is available in the UK for £52.95 from Master of Malt. As with all the Boutique-y Rum range this bottle is a 50cl style allowing for more bottles – 477 in total for this release.

In the glass the rum is an orange/golden brown colour. The nose on this one is very light and full of toffee and caramel. Charred oak give the rum a bit more depth and the rich oak spices are nicely integrated with aromas of ginger and white pepper.

Vanilla closes out what is quite a nicely balanced – yet light nose.

Sipped at full strength this is quite a flavoursome rum. More so than the nose suggests. The initial entry is sweet with lots of toffee, caramel and white chocolate. This is followed by a very spicy mid palate full of stem ginger and some rich warming notes of tobacco and vanilla.

It’s quite an easy sip and it’s not hugely complex. Much of the flavour fades out into a slightly short finish. It’s not a bad finish it just quickly fades into little more than charred oak and some bitter wood. Which is nicer than it sounds!

It’s quite sweet though the hydrometer tells me it isn’t dosed. The sweetness does seem authentic though – rather than synthetic like the One Barrel. This is streets ahead of that bottling and this is making me re-consider rums from Belize for future purchases.

I don’t think this is the greatest rum I have ever tired but it mixed up nicely a Barbados style of column rum with some more “ron” like notes. So its quite interesting to have tried this rum.

It has just the right amount of sweetness but even with the high ABV it’s still a little light overall. Maybe a finish in a sweet wine cask might have given this a bit more character and made it a bit more unique.

Not bad though and much better than I had expected