It’s hard not to admire an artist who is willing to occasionally abandon the very tools that have won them critical acclaim. For a musician or filmmaker, that might be a purposeful move away from a sound or genre that has given them a rabid fanbase. For a chef, maybe it’s the decision to ditch a dish that is extremely popular with customers. And for Mount Gay Rum, it’s the choice to put out a release like The Madeira Cask Expression. With this bottle, the company’s Master Blender, Trudiann Branker is exploring a space so apart from Mount Gay’s core expressions that it can hardly even be referred to as the same category of product. It’s a wildly ambitious undertaking, but one with delicious results that speak for themselves.
This bottle is the latest release in the distillery’s Master Blender Collection, which began in 2018 with XO: The Peat Smoke Expression, followed with others such as Pot Still Rum, The Port Cask Expression, and last year’s Andean Oak. But where all of those bottles were at least based around core rums that were indicative of the Mount Gay house style, The Madeira Cask Expression diverges from most forms of precedent. It’s as if the goal was to be as disparate as possible, in fact.
For one, this is an entirely column still rum, an unusual thing from the Barbados distillery, whose flagship products are typically a blend of lighter column still rum and heavier, more ester-laden pot still product. Nor does this product apparently see any time inside of ex-American whiskey casks, in which most Mount Gay products would be aged—instead, it spent its entire six-year maturation inside casks that previous contained the Portuguese fortified wine Madeira.
These are choices that run against prevailing rum geek expectations and hype, which often favor pot still distillate and advanced age statements. Granted, there are aspects of this label that will still catch the rum geek’s eye, such as the sturdy 55% ABV (110 proof), which is higher than other Master Blender Collection bottles. But in general, it feels like quite an exotic concept, which Branker described below to local Barbados media:
I was inspired by Madeira’s rich history and expertise of aging wine. When we placed the column distilled rum in these beautiful barrels six years ago I had a patient curiosity knowing that one day the liquid from these barrels would bring an entirely new flavour profile to our distinct rum. What developed truly pushed my palate beyond what I thought Mount Gay rum could do and I’m proud to release Madeira Cask as this year’s Master Blender Collection.
