Swell De Spirits HMPDN 2011 Jamaican Pot Still Rum
Key Facts About This Pot Still Rum
Bottler: Swell De Spirits
Founder: Michael Barbaria
Range: Wonders Of The World #3
Distillery: Hampden
Age: 10 years old
Distilled: June 2011
Matured: Matured in Jamaica until October 2018
Bottled: August 2021
Spirit: Single pot still Jamaican rum, molasses
Alcohol by Volume: Cask strength at 67.4%
Bottled: Natural colour and without chill filtration
Outturn: 324 bottles
Bottle Size: 500ml
Awards: Scored 90 points on WhiskyFun
Hampden 10 Year Old Tasting Notes
Official tasting notes, neat
Nose: Let's hear it for esters! Apple juice and pear drops open the nose. Then it heads to the coast with fresh sea air, jet ski oil and a neoprene wet suit. Cricket played on the hot beach using bats polished with linseed oil. There are stalls with cakes including sugary ring doughnuts and cinnamon cakes dusted with icing sugar. A fruit stall laden with pineapple, limes and blood oranges. Gleaming jars of golden runny honey and thick lime flower honey. Someone drinking Armagnac surveys the scene. They're wearing a denim jacket with a suede tobacco pouch in their pocket and leather boots with freshly glued new rubber heels.
Palate: An explosion of flavours with a smooth and thick mouthfeel. Fruits aplenty for starters – a pineapple bombe, strawberries, coconuts and orchard notes. The main course is steak seasoned with black pepper and a salt crust. For dessert, plantain with spicy syrup, hot apple slices studded with cloves and tamarind and drizzled with honey, a slice of ginger cake. Bowls of orange sweets and dark chocolate enrobed ginger. After dinner, going surfing in a wetsuit on a freshly sealed surfboard.
Finish: Long and lingering. Dry and spicy. Ginger syrup over hot plantain, plus pineapple and a bouquet of flowers.
Official tasting notes, with water
Nose: With an ABV this high and all those lovely esters, it's worth adding a few drops of water. Salt water taffies emerge before heading to a building site with hot nail guns, a bucket of glue, paint and freshly hewn timbers. Fresh, aromatic wines follow with Riesling, Gewürztraminer and Bacchus. Spices in the form of crystallised ginger, star anise and cough sweets, plus liquorice pipes and the hot oil of food stalls.
Palate: It's smoother and full of sweet desserts. Black Forest gateau, chocolate bombe with chocolate ice cream, rum baba, and spiced pastries. Crystallised fruits served on a pine table. A medicine cabinet to the side, containing iodine, antiseptic cream and crepe bandages.
Finish: Full of Christmas spices, greens on the mantelpiece with yule logs in the fireplace.
You can also read Ed's tasting notes in his review of Swell De Spirits' Hampden Jamaican Rum here.
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Meet The Founder
Michael Barbaria