1st of August, in the UK, so naturally it’s pissing it down with rain. Time to pick up my spirits with something very tropical.

What is it? A flavoured rum drink produced by Plantation. They take their 3 Stars rum and infuse the rinds of Victoria pineapples in it for 1 week, once flavoured they then distil this in pot stills. Separately, they take the fruit of the pineapples and infuse it in their Original Dark rum for 3 months. The resulting 2 rums are then married together and put into casks where they age for up to 3 months.

Coloured, chill filtered and bottled at 40% abv.

Sugar? Yep. 23 g/l as tested by Wes at thefatrumpirate.com

Nose: Pineapple, of course. Not in your face though – fresh and juicy, warm and sun-baked. Deep brown muscavado sugar, slightly caught and burnt I guess, faintest tobacco and some decent barrel char. A little leather, some distant tar and a banana thrown in for good measure. Not just about the pineapple, there are other lovely smells to be had underneath, and they’re not even that difficult to find.

Palate: Medium to heavy mouth feel – good heavy, not sticky heavy, despite the sugar. Not as sweet as expected, I mean it definitely tastes of pineapple but lovely and pan fried in butter, glazed with brown sugar. There is a creamy taste and feel about this, almost a pineapple cream, as well as a faint prickle of heat – but it’s generally pretty sedate.

Finish: Short. Pineapple cube sweeties, banana, brown sugar and then that tobacco and char from the nose. There is a tarry, even rubbery note right at the end and a gentle fade with the normal blend of baking spices. Nothing to write home about but generally a nice continuation and fade of the palate.

Thoughts: Look, I knew what I was getting when I bought this. I knew it’d be sweetened and it’d be flavoured and it’d be young, I made my purchase fully understanding this so I’m not going to complain. Actually, quite the contrary; I find this very good and much better than I was expecting. I fully expected to just get a nose and mouth of pineapple but there are plenty of other flavours in there – it’s being sold as mainly a mixer but you really can sip this quite happily neat (as I’ve done with my entire bottle), and it’s dangerously moreish.

I paid £36 for this at the time. I’d rather have paid £30 or less (it is young) but all in all I’m quite happy with it and would buy it again.