Grays 3 year 2017 Transcontinental Rum Line (50%)

N: plantains, oak chips, butterscotch, ginger, a bit of rubber, a bit of ash…more wood than you’d expect for three years, but tropical aging can do that

P: this immediately makes me think of rice with a savory-sweet mayonnaise and vinegar sauce (we called this “Hibachi sauce” or “shrimp sauce” when I worked at a fast food “Japanese” place in Tennessee, also known as Yum Yum). But perhaps that’s an idiosyncratic response to what is really a pretty straightforward combination of oak and young molasses distillate. The acidity saves this from falling into flat simplicity, or from being too sweet, though it does bear a resemblance to a sweet and fruity young bourbon (with, say, a drop of rice vinegar added to it)

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Mauritius 7 year 2013 Barikenn single cask (53.6%)

N: less wood than the 3 year, and more of the funky rubber (disposable rubber gloves, not tires). Yellowish tropical fruit again, more of it

P: same basic elements as the younger one: sweet wood, yellow fruit, slightly brash rubbery distillate, and a nice strong acidity keeping it all lively. There’s a breadiness (as well as a sweetness which isn’t entirely from wood) which makes this a cousin to grappa more than bourbon

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Grays 11 year 2010 Compagnie des Indes (57.8%)

N: back to wood, toasty even, still lots of janitorial rubber, and a sort of spiced cranberry (they’d have a picture of holly berries if this were a candle, though the things in fact have little aroma)

P: the same DNA for sure, the acidity and the rubber, and a little of the same fruit as the other two, but as on the nose this moves into a more mature oakiness that suggests some dark berries and spice.  Structurally, tannins are a bigger part of the equation here which improves the dynamic beyond the simpler balance of acidity and sweetness

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