Pot still rum is often treated as a novelty or a flavoring agent in the modern rum market, doled out in small quantities into various blends in order to act as “the spice” or “the flourish” on top of a body largely composed of cleaner, more consistent column-distilled rums. The vast majority of modern rum (and really, modern liquors) come from column stills, which can produce larger quantities and more consistent, concentrated product—but without quite as much individuality and expressiveness that is often seen in high-ester pot still rums.
It’s easy to forget, though, that for several hundred years, pure pot still rum was the sole definition of the product. Prior to the introduction of column stills, every batch of rum came from pot stills, which likely contributed to products that were both characterful but somewhat inconsistent. But hey, it was the 1800s—it’s not as if consumers were about to write to the distillery’s PR team about batch-to-batch changes. In the modern era, however, consumers have increasingly gotten used to the carefully forged blends that are the backbones of most distilleries’ flagship products, and tasting a 100% pot still rum has become more of a rare occasion.
This is no doubt what new Mount Gay Master Blender Trudiann Branker—the brand’s first female master blender in its 300-year existence, and one of the few in the Caribbean rum industry—was thinking when she designed her first rum for the company. The second release in Mount Gay’s “Master Blender Collection,” following last year’s XO The Peat Smoke Expression, Mount Gay Pot Still Rum is a celebration of the way the brand spent more than 200 years producing their coveted liquid. It’s a 10-year-old spirit, distilled in 2009 and bottled at 96 proof, coming off the distillery’s classic pot stills, which are typically contributing toward classic Mount Gay expressions like XO and 1703—both of which were created by Branker’s predecessor Allen Smith, who served as Master Blender for more than 25 years. As a native Bajan, it only makes sense that Branker’s first introduction of her blending skills to the Mount Gay audience would be as a celebration of the brand’s oldest techniques.
So with that said, let’s get to tasting.