On the occasion of the 6th Salon du Rhum de Belgique in Spa, The Nectar and Vincent’s team had the privilege of being able to select a Hampden cask, via Velier, coming directly from the distillery.
And among the selections offered, a 2010 LROK will have hit our team. Aged entirely in the bourbon barrel in the tropics for 9 years, this barrel will have given 250 bottles titling 63.2%.
Those 250 bottles will apparently not have all been sold during the rum fair, part having remained in Italy to be offered there … why? Non lo so.
So here we are with a single cask, for Belgium and although I’m not a huge fan of this kind of « mono mark » bottling, I had to have seen my affection for this very nice Spa rum fair.
Other Hampden single casks will have seen the light of day in 2019:
- HLCF/DOK 2010 for Velier
- OWH 2012 for whisky Live de Paris
- <H> 2010 for La Maison Du Whisky
- LFCH 2011 for whisky Live de Singapour
- OWH 2011 for Berlin bar Convent
- LROK 2010 for le Salon du rhum de Spa
Having helped a friend find this bottle, he would have very kindly thanked me by sending me a sample of each reference! Big thank you to you, great master of Esters 🙂
Color
Gold, relatively oily. It is very difficult for droplets to fall from the top of the glass.
Nose
Funky, to say the least!
It is rather generous in fact, alcohol is obviously felt but behind this force, we can find beautiful bourbon vanilla, fruits such as banana, citrus, marzipan or in any case dough almond, traditional olives, 5-berry pepper and solvent.
So yes, it hurts all the same a little, even a lot, in fact, but it’s rather greedy. I will not go so far as to say that it is balanced but, from the top of its 63 watts, it rather goes pretty well on the nose 🙂
Palate
The first sip is very lively … pwa, it still smacks this one 🙂
After this first shock, there is something rather fatty, caramelized, delicious and smoky / toasted very pleasant.
Vanilla, brown sugar, some new, more fruity traces, olives, brines and above all a fairly present woodiness.
Not that it becomes wood juice, far from it, but I think this is the first time that I find so many woody traces in a Hampden.
Toast, toasted bread, light tobacco, vanilla are more prominent than other references in fact.
The finish is of course very long, on the nuts and a slight hint of long fermentation … we feel a hint of HERR with this tagada strawberry, but it is very light.
Price
145€
Conclusion
Nice selection by the rum show team for a nice « prestige » bottle … Yep, an « official » Hampden single cask, it doesn’t happen every day.
After that, am I really a fan of this kind of thing … I don’t know, probably not. It’s good, we’re having a good time, but it’s still one of those bottles that will be very difficult to empty, I think.
You really have to be in very special conditions to enjoy this 100% rum. Personally, I might have tried a slight reduction just to see what it looked like.
And for once, I would have done that with water coming directly from the distillery to see what it could give at 55/60% … but hey, who I am to say something eh 🙂
Score
86/100
