WM Cadenhead or Cadenhead’s are an independent Whisky, Rum and Gin bottler from Scotland.   The bottling up for review today is a Cask Strength release from 2015.  It is pretty much sold out now and hard to find.

When released this rum retailed at around the £50 mark.  Part of the reason why it didn’t last too long on the shelves.  It is a 9 year old rum – distilled back in 2005 and bottled in September 2015.  It is from the Travellers Distillery on the Caribbean Island of Belize.

Travellers Liquors are most well known for their One and Five Barrel branded rums.  As well as the more recent Don Omario 15 Year old.  The recently released Tiburon Premium Rum is distilled by Travellers though not released by them its via a third party.

Produced on column stills this rum is bottled at Cask Strength.  Which means it comes in at a hefty 64.6% ABV.  It has SFBT on the front of the bottle – quite what this denotes I have no idea.  Cadenhead’s often put strange monikers on their bottles which often leave many confused!

Presentation wise – I think Cadenhead’s bottles are a bit dated.  You do however get a good quality cardboard sleeve to store your rum and a decent cork stopper.  I like the stubby bottle but the colour scheme is all very old age pensioner.  Beige.

I wasn’t at all keen on the One Barrel rum from Travellers.  One of the worst rums I have ever had.  Tiburon was better but still no world beater.  Still, I always keep an open mind especially as this shows no signs of adulteration (maybe a touch of colouring).

In the glass the rum is a reddish golden brown.  Could well be some caramel colouring added.  It looks a little bit too good for a 9 year old column distilled rum.

The nose is nice, pleasant.  For a rum straight from the cask at 64.6% ABV it is very light.  Similar to a well balanced Bajan.  Very nice oak notes and some light wafts of vanilla.  Without water there is a strong almost licorice/aniseed, alcohol forward note.  This fades however when a little water is added to bring it down to a more drinkable ABV.  There is also a quite herbal note in the rum – pine cones.

Sipping the rum reveals something different to the nose.  It’s quite spicy – the herbal pine I detected on the nose comes through.  It is quite refreshing and clean tasting.  There are woody notes but they aren’t of the more familiar oak and smoky variety.  They are slighty more minty.

The rum is quite a lot different on the nose to the actual taste.  Which is a little odd.  The nose had quite a lot I like in a rum – nice balanced oak notes and vanilla.  These don’t transfer that well into the actual sipping.  Which is a shame.

This rum is quite enjoyable.  It’s nicely done and I’m pleased to report that it hasn’t been altered in any way.  Independent bottlers are often a good way to taste rums from distilleries whose core products are adulterated.  These releases won’t have the additives so you get to taste the actual spirit.

At just under £50 and offering (with water) around a litre of sippable spirit, this was a good value release from Cadenhead’s.  It’s a decent enough rum but nothing spectacular.

Good but not quite great.  It offers more on the nose than it actually delivers on the sip.  It’s not bad but doesn’t have a great deal of complexity.  The finish is okay but pretty short.

Could have been better but it’s 100’s of times better than One Barrel!