Overview
Brand: Hamilton
Origin: Diamond Distillery, Diamond, Guyana (picked by Florida Rum Society)
Still: Wooden Pot
Age: 11 years, 4 months
Finish: ex-Bourbon
ABV: 60%
Next on our Hamilton Week journey is a bottle from one of the single casks that Ed Hamilton released a few years ago.
After years of success in the cocktail-ready, blended rum scene, Ed launched the Single Cask Strength Collection; I gather the name is meant to emphasize "cask" twice, as the rums in this collection are single cask and cask strength. They feature a Foursquare pot & column blend, a Worthy Park pot still rum, and Guyanese rums from 4 different Demerara Distillers, Ltd. (DDL) stills, each one being pot or column.
Hamilton Single Cask Strength Collection Guyana Port Mourant was produced at DDL via the famous Port Mourant wooden double retort pot still in 2010. It was immediately shipped to the UK (likely the Main Rum Company in Liverpool) for aging; it spent 11 years there until being shipped to the US for bottling at 60% ABV in 2021.
This particular bottle was part of a single cask picked by the Florida Rum Society; it yielded 288 bottles in total.
Appearance
White gold, low viscosity
Nose
Rotting grapes, grapefruit peel, green banana, decomposing pineapple, honey, acetone
Palate
Rotting grapes, underripe pineapple, rotting bananas, crushed blueberries, vanilla, starfruit, freezer-burned vegetables nutmeg
Finish
Long, fruity, funk; rotting pineapple, crushed blueberries, cinnamon-dusted apples, banana peel
Rating: 8/10
Summary
Hamilton's 11 year Port Mourant is excellent. While the PM marque is one that can be divisive– even for me, it's not always a go-to, and something I have to be in the mood for– it's an undeniable classic that shows the versatility of rum as a spirits category.
Compared to some other expressions of Port Mourant rum, this is a bit more tame when it comes to the "freezer veggies" notes that other bottlings have. Instead, it leans into tropical fruits in various states of decomposition; while that sounds like bad or off-putting flavors, that's exactly what fans of Guyanese and specifically the PM marque look for.
Great rum from a storied still; I'm glad I grabbed one of these bottles, as it allows me to compare and contrast with other Port Mourant expressions I may come across.