Hampden Estate 8-Year

I'm already familiar with Appleton, my second step on Jamaican terroir is to try the famous Hampden.

The nose is complex and intense. The initial sensations of sourness, grass and wet tropical wood, gradually become accompanied by overripe fruits. The aroma then becomes industrial with hints of metal and stein, to let the fruity notes come back in the sour version after a while. This time I was able to distinguish kiwi, citrus and pineapple. Eventually, after 15 minutes the smell got milder and sweet, with nail polish remover, dust, malt and molasses.

The dominating taste is extremely dry spicy pepper. Minor industrial and sour fruity notes hide in the background. The taste is fast gone, leaving one with a completely dry mouth.

The hype for Hampden is huge, especially among the experienced drinkers. For me it was just strange. Nice, but not hypnotizing aromas and quite flat taste with almost nonexistent aftertaste. I'm still not sure what the terms "funk" and "hogo" mean, though I hoped to discover it during this tasting.

The taste took some getting used to. As a relatively new rum enthousiast it felt stronger then 46%. Will have to try it again.

Although not my favourite, this is real quality stuff. Unsweetened, uncoloured, single pot-stilled rum. All ingredients declared, the standard Luca Gargano and Richard Seale are trying to get the industry to aspire to.
Great chunky bottle, neat lable, but plastic stopper.
Gold colour.
Nose very funky, in keeping with the esters declared on the label. Gluey, acetone entry, fading into dried bananas.

In the mouth it's a beast, punching above its 46%. Alcohol and other volatiles kick your palate, there is a long spiritey finish, but a shortage of dried fruit and wood.
Bone dry, sweetness 1/5.

In the throat there is a burn that goes up your nose and follows down into your gullet.

This is not a subtle rum. It'll make you sit up and take notice of what is the craft of double retort pot stills. The complete opposite of Zacapa / El Dorado / Diplomatico.
I'm not sure whether I'd buy it again, but I loved the experience of unusual, but serious quality.

Tasted in Drinks By The Dram - The Rum Advent Calendar (2019 Edition)

At first the nose is ... awful. Like a chemical product in the painting industry ...
If you dare taste it, now it is different. You understand how particular rums can be according to the culture and style. This is form Jamaica. Wooden, dry, not round or sweet. More aggressive and energizing. Not my style but add 2 if it is yours !

This is my most expensive bottle to date. I was expecting lots of funk. What i got was lots of oak and a little funk. A little disapointed overall. You can spend half and get s good bourbon or rye.

Quite good but expectation was most likely too high, good honey colour, could be stronger..looking forward to compare w/ GH & Overproof 😎

Honestly, I'm pretty disappointed about this.

I was hoping for a lot of funk, which there isn't, imo. It sits neatly between Appleton 12 and Smith & Cross in terms of funk and heat, though the heat is surprisingly subdued, and the funk is mainly rubber.

Notes I pick up are mainly rubber, though it's also a bit sweet, and I don't know how else to put this, but it tastes "dusty".

I don't think this one is bad, but I expected a lot more interesting notes, especially for the price point. I have yet to have the funkiest ones like Hamilton, Dr. Bird, Rum Bar, etc, but I hope they are significantly more interesting. For now I'll stick to my Appleton 12 (once this bottle is empty.)

Nose: Funk, overripe apples, pear brandy, plum brandy
Palate: very whiskey-like, apple brandy, sour apple, smokiness, bitter herbs, medicinal essence
Finish: short, DRY as the Sahara desert, sour, rhubarb, faint hints of caramel, clove spice

So this is very interesting and simultaneously weird as hell. Perhaps it is the esters but this is a very different take on Jamaican rum. Its almost like a marriage between Smith & Cross and Kentucky bourbon with some bitter herbs, cigar smoke, and pear brandy thrown in for good measure. It has a pleasant nose of overripe apples, plum brandy, and the telltale Jamaican funk. On the palate it is immediately and almost overwhelmingly whiskey-like which quickly fades into apple brandy, heavy smokiness, and bitter herbs with a medicinal essence playing in the background. The aftertaste is almost pucker sour, like biting into an under ripe apple with faint hints of rhubarb and a clove like spiciness to it. Long after putting the glass down your mouth dries out and you feel like you just smoked a cigar sterilized in apple brandy. The finish is very, very dry. In fact this is the driest rum I have ever experienced bar none. Drink water with this...not because of the alcohol, but because of how damn dry this rum is..seriously. All in all it is a very, very different and interesting experience most of which is pleasant and some of which is just downright weird. Frankly, this rum gives me a split personality. 1/3 of me screams "I love it!", 1/3 of me tells me that this is just damn weird and confuses me, and 1/3 of me detests the sour, whiskey, pucker dry mouth it leaves in my cheeks. I have no idea how to rate this confusing mess one so I guess I will go with a 6. I could see how this rum would be extremely polarizing. I could also imagine that this rum would be one hell of mixer with a very distinct profile, I guess I will have to try that. As a final point, one of the major issues with this rum is the price. At $60 a bottle this is fairly expensive and while it is a quality pure pot still rum, the total experience just isn't pleasant enough to warrant that price tag - especially the when Smith & Cross (ultimately deriving from the same distillery) offers a far superior rum at exactly 1/2 the price.

Nose: 7
Palate: 6
Aftertaste: 6
Smoothness: 6
Versatility: 10
Price: 5

Overall: 6.6

Lots of very strange notes like nail polish remover, paint solvent and paint stripper, also rubbery, but then again quite rich on tropical fruits. I generally like Jamaican rums and their funky edges, but here these notes are so overpowering they steer away too much from what I find attractive in a rum.