The Luxury rum brand, R. St Barth, was launched in 2011, and is the brainchild of the French international footballer, Mikael Silvestre.
The R. St Barth product range features an un-aged white rum, a 4-year old Bourbon barrel aged rum, and a 12-year old oak cask aged beverage named ‘Authentique’ which is limited to only 2,000 bottles every year.
The Caribbean island of Saint Barthélemy (St. Barts or Saint-Barth) is known as ‘dry’, meaning that it has limited natural water resources, so desalinated seawater is used to provide the island’s drinking supplies. R. St Barth rum is manufactured according to age-old traditions on Guadeloupe (the original home of the Silvestre family), an island renowned for its top quality authentic rhum agricole made from 100% cane sugar. The humid volcanic terrain which basks in sunshine, forms the perfect cradle for the cane which is grown in a fully sustainable environment, and the location’s natural volcanic spring water complements the rum perfectly.
The busy sugarcane season lasts from February through to July, and the cane is at its richest and finest between the months of March and April when it is harvested at full maturity. R. St Barth is indeed an agircole rum, meaning that it comes from the juice as a result of the first press of the sugar cane, rather than molasses, which most rum originates from. The resulting taste by comparison is a green, earthy, vegetative flavour for the un-aged rum, while the aged rums boast a deep, rich flavour that stays on the palette for a longer period.
The products are all hand-finished in St Barth, and are distributed across the US, UK, France, Sweden, Norway and the Caribbean. The entire range has a limited production run of just 30,000 bottles per annum.
- Style: powerful and subtle with a long finish.
- Key words: acacia highlights – cinnamon, spices, dried fruits – long and lightly smoky finish.
- Tasting notes: an authentic rum agricole, aged for twelve years in oak barrels. If tasted neat in a specially created R. St Barth glass – preferably to round off a meal – each note can be distinguished:
There are aromas of vanilla and cinnamon, and caramelised, oaky notes with hints of spices, plum and cherry. On the palate, it is generous and well-rounded: the superb richness reveals flavours of dried fruits, toasted almond, vanilla, nutmeg, cinnamon and liquorice, and the long finish is lightly smoky and pleasantly subtle.
R. St Barth is retailed in the UK at Master of Malt and Hedonism Wines. Expect to pay from £730.00 per bottle for the R. St Barth Authentique and around £48.00 per bottle for the R. St Barth Cool White.
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