Review: Plantation Barbados XO Single Cask Rum

One of three Plantation limited production (single cask) rums I’ve purchased in the last few months. I reviewed the PERU here, and now it’s the Barbados’ turn.

At 48% ABV this is a nicely balanced rum, and the least expensive of these new offerings at $50/750ml bottle. It is first a blend of pot-still and double-column distillates. Tropically aged for “several years” (that from the front label) in ex bourbon barrels, this rum then gets 1 more year in “Amburana casks”, a South (and perhaps also central) American wood. There is not much to be found about Amburana on wikipedia. There is more confusion to be had here. The front label says “Amburana” (and numbers the cask and bottle) while the back label says the rum spends its last six months aging in “Ferrand oak” which is not a kind of wood that I can find, but rather a person famous for his cognac.

With this confusion not cleared up much, lets get to the rum itself.

Color: Not pale but not yet even medium dark I’d say the color is medium-pale, less red copper than more yellow brass, but somewhere in between.

Legs: Thin and medium fast.

Aroma: When I first opened this rum the scent of cinnamon was overwhelming. As it evolved in the bottle a bit the cinnamon joined with baked apple. Yes this smells like a rich home-made apple pie! I also sense raisin, prune, white grape, nutmeg, faint brown sugar, and only lastly the alcohol. I discern no acetone notes nor particularly any oak. The fruitiness, especially apple are front and center.

Flavor: I have not yet tasted a rum where the dominant aroma notes translated to well to the taste. Baked apple and cinnamon are the dominant notes. The first time I tried this it was mostly cinnamon, but the apple came along after a few days and the mix of both along with other dark fruits has stayed with it now through about a quarter of the bottle. The rum is sweeter than most that I like now, but I have learned to stay in touch with sweeter rums (mostly via El Dorado 15) but this is another I like very much. Distinctly sweet compared to the Plantation Peru or any of the Foursquare rums I’ve come to love, but not over-much so.

It is not creamy but rather glassy-sharp from the first sip on and has a long distinctly sweet aftertaste where the brown sugar note comes forward. I usually find after-tastes to be less sweet, even a little bitter as oaky flavors come forward, but this rum is an exception. The apple-cinnamon combination dials back as the glass finishes and one has a hint of hard apple cider. All throughout there is a nice bit of fire in the swallow, but it never gets harsh. Despite the pot-still component there is no funk in this rum either of the rotten fruit or vegetal sorts.

In conclusion medium expensive and just a little sweet for my taste now, but I think worth keeping around to try again later. Highly recommended, especially if you are wanting to migrate from sweeter to less-sweet rums.

Here a little marketing blurb from Plantation on these single barrel rums