Haiti Week, II: Papalin Haiti 4yo and 6yo, HV Port au Prince (Providence)
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- Опубліковано 27 чер 2024
- Tuesday ( • Haiti Week, I: Rhum Ba... ) was the continuously distilled warmup, today is the batch distilled main event. We've got an unaged bottling from the new Distillerie de Port-au-Prince under Herbert Barbancourt Linge (the Providence folks - see • Providence "First Drop... for my my previous review), and then some blends that constitute probably the longest-aged clairins or mostly-clairins I've ever tasted. (Somewhat accidentally this also ended up being an all-Velier lineup, although I shouldn't be surprised considering how much work Velier has been doing finding quality rum in Haiti.) Off we go:
- Distillerie de Port-au-Prince Haiti Pure Single Rum (unaged, bottled by Habitation Velier; pot distilled from Crystalline cane juice in 2021; 59% ABV), 85-/100
- Papalin Haiti 4 Year Old Vatted Rum (32 tropically aged barrels from five distilleries, blended by Luca Gargano, bottled 9/22; 53.1% ABV), 89/100
- Papalin Haiti 6 Year Old Vatted Rum, Ex-Sherry Casks (7 tropically aged barrels from threedistilleries, blended by Luca Gargano, bottled 9/23; 54.1% ABV), 91/100
The HV feels a lot like Providence's First Drops from a few years back: very fat, very textured, and overall quite nice, but tricky and austere and it doesn't respond well to water. That said, this stuff feels built to age; the second they release a 5yo, I'm on it.
And then there's the Papalins. I wasn't all that fond of the Papalin Jamaica ( • Funkin' For Jamaica: P... ) and I've always been a bit skeptical of aged clairins (especially when the early ansyens came out), so I was expecting good but not exceptional. But these Papalins from Haiti, dear viewer, are absolutely exceptional. The 4 is a dense, sharp array of herbs, spices and tropical fruit that can box with just about any young, distillate-driven rum I can think of. The 6 is all that, dunked in coffee and pepper to the point that it somehow transforms into the best old cognac I've had in a long time. Superlatively wonderful, and the new benchmark for aged cane juice rum as far as I'm concerned.
Now as I write this, Haiti now experiences its third large-scale foreign intervention in the last thirty years. This is far from what the Haitian people wanted: the history of such interventions is not a positive one, and it must be up to the Haitians and their friends and allies around the world to make sure that human beings and their way of life are not trampled and abused in the name of order. When reading the articles, I personally often feel hopeless in the face of what looks like nothing but bad outcomes. But as silly as it may seem to point to a few bottles of rum as reason for faith - albeit a modest one - there they are. I challenge anyone to taste stuff like this and not believe in the Haitians' extraordinary capacity for skill, ingenuity, and independence. These people can do amazing things, and they've survived worse, and they will survive this.
Extra special thanks to my Different Spirits on Patreon ( / differentspirits ) -
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When you said you smelled the dentist plaster stuff, it brought back strong sensory memories that I didn't even know I had. I love when that happens!
@@RobynSmithPhD I'm pretty sure Proust would have loved these rums. 😂
Love the 4yr, and can't wait to find the 6yr. Thanks for the review!
Also I wined about the volume level a month or two back, and keep meaning to post that it got much better shortly thereafter. Much appreciated!
@@BB-zw8jp Thank you for whining! 😂 Good luck with the 6yo, it's that good.
The color on that 6 year is nuts. I can almost smell it through the screen.
@@jre5490 Yeah, six years of tropical aging in sherry ain't no joke...
Was drinking some of the 4 yr last night to get through that "event" 😂. Delicious stuff
I couldn't do it to myself. (The event, not the Papalin...)
They should be casimir, sajous, vaval, sonson and rocher
I was wondering about Sonson in particular. It was a relatively late addition to the Velier stable, so I can only speculate about whether they had time to get a barrel to four years by 2022. (But then the Providence folks only started distilling in 2019, which clearly isn't enough time.)
@@differentspirits4157 yes that's true and I'm not speaking from a position of certainty just speculation. It felt like I was tasting all 5 of those at the same time when I was drinking it
I double checked and it looks like the first Sonson bottled was a 2018 vintage, so it seems like they at least had access to stocks by then. So you're probably right, the math works out!! 😁
@@differentspirits4157I've only been able to get 2018 sonson in the states and it is pretty sparse. I'm assuming later vintages all went to different markets
according to my go-to Italian spirits shop, the 4yo Papalin is "a blend of five different distilleries: Sajous; Vaval; Casimir; Distillerie de Port-au-Prince and Le Rocher". So no Sonson in the mix, if they're not wrong.
The same site does not reveal any details about the 6yo old.
Well now I want to track these down- My wallet hates you.
@@BagofSunChips Apologies to your wallet! 😅