What is it? Bajan Single Blended rum (pot and column still rum, from molasses, distilled at a single distillery) from the Foursquare distillery in St Philip, Barbados. This rum is one of the brands/rums produced by the Foursquare distillery and uses a recipe that was originally reserved for family members. It is named after the year of Bajan independence in 1966, hence the Sixty Six. The rum, as with most Foursquare blends, is blended after distillation and before cask fill so that the rums have the full maturation period to marry together – in this case for at least 12 years, all of which is done tropically in ex-bourbon casks. This rum is produced in small batches (100-120 casks per batch), and the rum is first matured for around 8-10 years before being sampled, selected and the chosen rums re-racked for the remainder of the maturation period. Now, the bottle does refer to this as “Cask Strength”; I don’t believe that this is truly a cask strength rum in the literal sense, but more in the message of the rum. What I mean is, it is impossible for a rum that is small batch from a 100 or so casks to come out at exactly 59% abv every single time for every single batch – the abv has either been rounded to the nearest full percent abv or (I suspect) is a slightly higher abv that has been diluted a little to take it to 59%, this way they can get the batches done and bottled at the same abv every bottling run. I may be wrong on this, just my opinion.

Not coloured, not chill filtered and bottled at a whopping 59% abv.

Important note and update: The brand “Rum Sixty Six” has now been sold to Halewood International. New releases of the rum, as well as the white and 6 year old, are not Foursquare products, but instead rum sourced from Panama. They are nothing like the rum in this review. Please, buyer beware. Before you order a bottle of Rum Sixty Six please ensure that it is a Foursquare distillery bottle or from Barbados.

Sugar? No way in hell.

*No water has been added for this review, I’ve been drinking it at full whack so that’s how I’m reviewing it*

Nose: Wow. It’s big, and I don’t mean the abv, the smells are intense. Grilled coconut, roasted peanut, pecans and cashews, smoked almonds with that sticky sugar stuff on it. Dark chocolate, vanilla fudge, butterscotch, cinnamon, nutmeg and ground ginger. Big whiffs of old leather jackets, distant pipe tobacco and a salty, brine’y olive note. There is a smell of dried leaves, soil, grease and cut grass – like your hands smell when you’ve been in the garden using an old petrol mower – dirty, mucky, but wonderful. I could smell this all day long.

Palate: Full and coating, even at 59%. Hot, it’s 59% though right! Dangerously drinkable at full proof, and that’s how I’ve been drinking it. It really doesn’t need water at all but if you do add any then it swims like a fish and gets fatter, oilier and lets some of the sweeter notes come out. Basically, this is the same here as the nose, it carries through all those intense flavours well. If anything it’s more fudge’y and has extra butterscotch here, with less nuts. Mid-palate the grease, oil and olive come out with some red chillies that have been dipped in dark chocolate. There’s a lovely taste on the back end of the palate that is a mixture of camphor and the taste I expect boot polish to taste like if you could taste it, if you know what I mean.

Finish: Waaaaaaaaay long. You measure the length of the finish in parsecs, not minutes. Hot, naturally, but not unpleasantly so. Stem ginger, black peppercorns, chillies then nutty, sweet oak, coconut, caramels, maple syrup, vanilla fudge and dark, dark chocolate. There is a tiny bit of salty olive right at the end to remind you it’s also savoury and that camphor note creeps in every now and then.

Thoughts? Holy shit this is good. I’ve always felt that the “core” range of Foursquare rums played second fiddle to “everything else” they do; the Exceptional Cask Selection, Habitation Velier, other Velier collaborations etc, but not this. This is what the core range needed, a rocket up it’s arse. It is indeed exceptional rum, the intensity of flavour that is packed in here is incredible, yet it’s so easy to drink at full strength is scary, and as always with Foursquare, the balance of flavour is harmonious. I simply cannot fault it.

Let me put some perspective around this; it’s at least 12 years old, it’s tropically aged, it’s pure/undoctored rum, it’s 59% abv and it cost me £44. Yes, you read that right, £44! C’mon. I just can’t get my head around this – why would I not buy this rum?! (Rhetorical question by the way).

A rum I’ll have in my cabinet for as long as they keep making it.