It’s the summer of rum here at The Whisky Exchange. Our new rum classification is up and we’ve had a rum takeover on our website – there’s never been a better time to learn about and try new rums. However, there’s something missing: a special rum of our own to celebrate. No longer: introducing Foursquare Hereditas, exclusively bottled for The Whisky Exchange.
Foursquare
We’re big fans of Barbados’s Foursquare distillery. Distiller Richard Seale is a rum wizard and we’ve had his rums at The Whisky Exchange for as long as we’ve been able to get them in the UK. The distillery is best known for the Doorly’s line of rums, but increasingly the name Foursquare itself is becoming well-known.
Over the past few years Richard has been making a name for himself with the Foursquare Exceptional Cask Selection series, rums that explore what’s possible with careful maturation. They’ve all been excellent and we are very pleased to have our own Private Cask Selection. Hereditas celebrates the family heritage of both the Seales and The Whisky Exchange, and the years that we’ve worked together to get good rum out into the world.
Whisky fans are increasingly discovering that carefully-made and-aged sugar-cane spirit can rival their favourite single malts. So, to help more people discover rum, we worked with Richard to select something that will be familiar to whisky drinkers: a heavily-sherried bottling.
Hereditas
Foursquare Hereditas is distilled and aged at Foursquare in Barbados, and is a blend of pot- and column- distilled rum, making it a Single Traditional Blended rum in our new rum classification. It’s bottled at a punchy 56% ABV with no added sugar or flavourings and there are 2,520 bottles in the wild. The blend is made up of two components: 14-year-old bourbon-matured rum and 10-year-old bourbon-matured rum that was finished in sherry casks for four years.
It’s rare to see a rum aged for this long – 14 years is a long time in the hot and humid Caribbean climate. But this bottling is all about the blend, and the carefully-selected casks balance sweetness against rich, savoury notes, creating a complex and sherry-forward rum that you could almost mistake for a sherry-bomb single malt.
Nose: Rich, dark and meaty. Singed cinder toffee, charred fruit cake and banana bread. The banana notes continue into roasted banana and lead to banoffee. Plump vine fruit develops: squishy raisins, currants and dark, red-grape skin. Rich fruit cake dusted with brown sugar hides at the back.
Palate: The weighty character continues into the palate, with more sweet dried fruit: the raisins and sultanas are back, with rich, grown-up fruit cake in support, packed with dark and treacly molasses sweetness. The darker notes continue, with liquorice and stewed berries joining the treacle. Right at the back of the palate is a balancing touch of barrel-char bitterness, with pan-roasted aromatic spices – star anise, cinnamon sticks and a couple of cloves.
Finish: Fruity dark chocolate leads to liquorice and blackcurrant sweets. The sweetness fades to reveal damp earth and tingling spice.
Comment: A big, rich and dark rum that shows quite what a sherry cask can give to a spirit. If you like sherried whiskies or rich, dark rums, then you must try this.
It’s a great rum, and the fact that we’re celebrating our new classification with a Foursquare rum is perfect. Distiller Richard Seale’s work with Luca Gargano of rum importer Velier laid the groundwork for us, and his expertise has not only made us a great exclusive bottling, but continues to help us introduce more people to rum.
Foursquare Hereditas is available now from The Whisky Exchange website, and in both our Great Portland Street and Covent Garden shops.
Enjoy responsibly