Bottle Details:
Distillery: Jamaica HD
Bottler: The Whisky Jury (TWJ)
Vintage: 1990
Bottled: 2023
Stated Age: 32 years old
Casktype: Refill barrel
Casknumber: CH1990
Number of bottles: 214
Strength: 53.1 % Vol.
Ester Range At Birth: 1300 to 1400
HD 1990 Rum, The Whisky Jury
Nose: someone tried to glue together a dozen of overripe bananas. Then pickled olives, pineapple, sour cherry. The ester level is so high that you get a little buttermilk and citrus. Aniseed and light vanilla. Then back to acetone and new plastics, as well as pine needles and Hammerite. Geeky rum.
Mouth: ester galore, attacking your tongue (and saliva). The acidity is quite extreme, with sour fruits like fermented pineapples, green bananas and a lot of citrus. Really sour, but quaffable. Then brine, white pepper, anise and hints of pencil shavings. Acetone too, even a whiff of vinegar. More plastics and glue, as well as oak spice and green olives in brine towards the end.
Finish: very long and rather more gentle now, folding down to sour citrus notes with green olives and some umami echoes in the background.
This is quite something. The ester level here is 1300-1400 g/hlpa, better known as the C<>H marque or Continental Hampden. Even that cannot be mentioned explicitly, or so it seems. Anyway, the ABV is well chosen, in my opinion, keeping this extreme ester bomb at a drinkable level. Whether this is too much or within limits, is your call.