This rum is produced by the Texas distillery Balcones. The distillery was founded in 2008 by Chip Tate. Since then, the founder has been laid off from his own company, and in 2022 Balcones Distilling passed into the hands of the Diageo group.
Historically, the company has specialized in whisky, produced from blue corn grown in New Mexico and malted barley grown in Texas. Today, it is unsurprisingly one of the leading producers of single malt whisky in the USA.
Once a year, the plant stops producing whisky to distill rum from the highest quality molasses. Once fermented, it undergoes traditional double distillation in hand-made copper pot stills.
The rum is then aged in a selection of casks of different oak species and toasting profiles.
Each cuvée is bottled brut de fût, unfiltered and with no additives.
Nico's tasting notes
On the nose, a nice handful of spices have been tossed into the air, which is filled with clove, exotic pepper and nutmeg. The roasting register naturally takes over, with roasted pecans and coffee, then some ripe fruit juices transpire through the toasted wood.
Aeration reveals ever more toasty aromas, with roasted and ground nuts, burnt cane, caramel coffee and an espresso martini edge. Eventually, the natural white oak comes through and adds more mellowness, like a vanilla coconut crème brûlée.
The palate is as lively as it is sticky, like caramel fresh from the pot. The rum has taken the tannins from the oak and toasted them to produce flavors of roasted nuts with resinous undertones. We could also think of cereals toasted to the extreme and ground to a powder, for an impression of barley or rye coffee.
The finish is just as tasty, moving towards a little more calm and sweet spice, with a memory of pecan pie in the length.
"A rum that lacks neither bite nor gourmandise..."
