What is it? Single Blended rum (molasses based, pot and column still rum from a single distillery) from Barbados, produced by the Foursquare distillery. There’s so many Foursquare releases these days it’s hard to keep up, this year alone has seen Nobiliary (ECS 12), the 2008 vintage (ECS 13), imminent UK release of Detente (ECS 14) and in a few months, Redoutable (ECS 15). So which one is the Diadem then? Well, it’s not any. It’s not an Exceptional Cask Selection release, it’s a Private Cask Selection which has been bottled exclusively for The Whisky Exchange, the same vein as Hereditas from last year if you can remember that far back. So what’s in the bottle this time? The rums in here are from both pot stills and column stills and are blended together prior to aging. A portion of the blend spent 12 years in ex-bourbon casks whilst another portion of the blend spent 12 years in first fill ex-Madeira casks, the resulting rums were then blended together again (at an undisclosed ratio) to get the final blend. So 12 full years of aging, tropically done in Barbados.

There is a total outrun of 2000 bottles in this release.

Not coloured, not chill filtered and bottled at a 60% abv.

I’m drinking and reviewing this at around 55%, which is the strength I tend to take these beasts down to. A drop of 5% doesn’t seem like much but it makes a world of difference to the nose, palate and the inside of my throat.

Sugar? Nah.

Nose: Yeah, this has spent some serious time in Madeira casks alright. Lots of dark fruit here at first with blackberries, black cherries and black plums, some meaty figs, prune and a shitload of roasted nuts; walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, brazils, almonds and cashew – like sticking your gonk into a Christmas nut selection. Following the nutty onslaught comes to oak, with varnished wood, cinnamon, ginger, clove, roasted coconut, smoked vanilla and the classic “old” smells from dusty libraries and leather armchairs. There’s a thread of dark chocolate that runs through it but it’s not prominent and as you get deeper in there’s a surprising zesty lift of pineapple and candied lemons. Yuletide here we come.

Palate: Hot. Full and rich oily mouth feel. Hot – ginger, black pepper, clove – it’s a fiery blighter at the start. A couple of sips in and we’re starting to get somewhere, it sweetens but still holds on to the spice; black cherry and chipotle jam, a pack of glazed pineapple and chilli cashew mix, those big bars of dark chocolate you get with chilli in them, chocolate covered stem gingers and black pepper infused caramel. There’s this constant play between sweet and spice, just when you get a nice bit of sweetness along comes the heat and chilli spice and punches you in the mouth.

Finish: Initially your mouth is left with the heat from the palate, but it does soon disappear. The finish is long and once the spices have left you’re left with all the flavours that were hidden before; black forest chocolate cake, liqueur cherries, candied ginger and a lighter fruit note of raspberry and nuts, almost like Bakewell tart. There’s still oak here and prickles of heat, notes of the “old” from before with leather and mushrooms, so it’s not all fruits and fancies. Part way through the finish I keep getting savoury flashes of something oily, like WD40 or some type of glue, which is really nice as it just keeps you paying attention to what else there might be hidden in here to find. It bitters at the end with a really good cup of tea (Yorkshire) and some raw walnuts.

Thoughts? I’m not sure how to take this one. The last Madeira cask Foursquare I had was the Sagacity and I struggled with that for a while, this is way more intense and much better for it, it’s just really bloody hot! I like Madeira and this is dialled down somewhat but still clearly the main force of the rum, unfortunately I think that the usual wonderful balance that we find in Foursquare rums is lost here, it doesn’t know what to do to you; the Madeira wants to be all earthy and nutty and sweet, the bourbon wants to be all toasty and caramelly and something else inside it wants to kill you, but all 3 elements fight each other.

It’s really good, the day Richard Seale puts out a shit rum is the day I find another drink, but I’m looking at a line-up of Foursquare ECS bottles and shrugging with this. Yes I’ll enjoy it massively once Autumn proper starts, and no there isn’t any part of me that regrets buying it, but I just feel like it’s “another” bottle that’s been put out there. Where would I put this in the range of Foursquare bottles? Well you can’t do that really, the goal posts move forward at such a damn rate! I think it’s better than the Sagacity, but not as good as the Hereditas (yes I know they are different rums, but I’m placing it based on the Private Cask Selection and some Madeira).

This was £85, would I get another? Heh, of course. It may not be my favourite bottle of Foursquare rum but in the world of rum it’s still playing a whole other game.

You can pick this up from The Whisky Exchange here:

Foursquare Diadem

What is it? Single Blended Rum (molasses based, both pot and column still at a single distillery) from Foursquare in Barbados. This is Exceptional Cask Selection Mark 12 in the line-up of frankly ridiculously good rums from Foursquare and named Nobiliary, and I’m going to review the shit out of it – spoiler alert, it’s really, really good.

With non vintage ECS releases that have fancy names, you usually expect some type of cask play (Port, Madeira, Sherry, whatever) and the vintage releases tend to be ex-bourbon cask matured, so I was a little surprised when this was released to see that it has a fancy schmancy name and it’s ex-bourbon matured. My first reaction was that it was a little odd, given we had a 2008 vintage of the same type of cask, but I trust Richard Seale and any doubt lasted about a picosecond before I hit the “order” button. So what do we have in the bottle? As with the normal ECS run, we have a blend of rums that have come off a column still and a pot still, blended together and then casked up into ex-bourbon casks (I believe these are a mixture of 1st, 2nd and 3rd fill casks). The rum is then aged, tropicaly in Barbados, for a minimum of 14 years before being released in December 2019.

Released in limited numbers of 12,000 bottles worldwide; 6,000 in Europe and 6,000 in the US.

Not chill filtered, not coloured and bottled at full cask strength of 62% abv.

I’m reviewing the Foursquare Nobiliary at around 55% abv (ish) as that’s the strength I’ve been drinking it at. 62% isn’t any good for getting the depth out of the rum, it’s too tight there.

Sugar? Nope.

Nose: Wow, this thing is incredible. Initially there is a lot of oak, but that does blow off after a bit. It’s actually fairly sweet at first with lovely toasted oak, toasted coconut, really rich vanilla pod, clove, nutmeg, and an rum infused caramel or butterscotch. Then we’ve got deep woody smells of varnished old bookcases, those red or green leather chairs with buttons in that you see in stately homes, walking into a cobblers with leather clue, grease and old shoes. There’s this fantastic perfumed note that I can’t put my finger on, it’s a little like sandalwood but not as heavy mixed with some type of cut flowers and it’s gorgeous. Under the heavier smells, and once you get used to them, there’s plenty of fruit on offer too; red apples, red plums, figs, sultanas, dried banana and pineapple.

Palate: Full mouth, perfect weight at 55% abv. Not hot at all, which is really surprising. I mean, sure there’s a little heat of course but it’s so easy drinking at high abv is scary. A strange notion of sweetness, but not sweet. There’s the idea of sweetness here, with caramel, vanilla and coconut but it’s dry sweetness. Oak, varnish, buttered toasted bagels, peanuts, pecans, and some bitter walnut. There’s that perfumed note that I can almost taste on my palate again, slight violet note maybe, and liquorice root. Fruits come in later on with orange, red apple, red grape, plums, figs and date. There’s a little lift and zing some tropical or citrus with a lime, pineapple and banana but it’s fleeting – it’s just enough to stop the heavy oak from being too heavy. Unlike the vintage releases, there isn’t really any savoury in this rum, if anything there’s a touch of grease, stamp glue and a tiny bit of brine but it’s only faint and noticeable just as you swallow. Throughout the whole palate there’s a mild ginger root, black pepper and sweet red chilli that just sits there behind everything else, you feel the prickle and spice of it but it never comes to the front of the taste.

Finish: Very long. Things are sweeter here; rum and raisin fudge, dark chocolate, candied ginger root, candied pineapple and banana. There’s cinnamon, nutmeg and raisin, almost like a teacake or toasted cinnamon bagel with salted butter on. Lovely coconut, vanilla pod, roasted cashews and a sweet pipe tobacco that sits lightly on your tongue. I’m sure that this finish would go on for longer if I let it, but this rum is too damn good so I’ve usually dived back in for another swig!

Thoughts? One of my rums of the year, without doubt. This is utterly incredible rum. The rum itself it fantastic and the way it’s been matured in the cask mix has complimented it perfectly – if you’ve ever been lucky enough, as I have, to drink Eagle Rare 17yo there are flickers of the epic bourbon maturation that show in here and the mixing of old rum and those bourbon notes are seriously harmonious.

Whilst I usually like my Foursquare ex-bourbon casks with some savoury notes in them, and this has very little, there is just something else in here – it’s that perfumed note I’ve not been able to peg down. The way the oak works with it and then flashes of fruit and the overall softness is brilliant – if I were to describe this rum in one word it would be “beautiful”. A tip for you; make sure that as you drink this and swallow, and let the finish do it’s thing, that you constantly nose it at the same time. It’s quite an experience having both senses hit at the same time.

What’s the damage? £60.95. Would I buy this again? I bloody well can’t! It’s all sold out……yes, but yes. Oh yes, I would….

You can’t get this from the big boys anymore but The Whisky Exchange are still selling samples of this (at the time of writing) here, if you want one:

Foursquare Nobiliary Sample

What is it? Single Blended Rum (molasses based, both pot and column still at a single distillery) from Foursquare in Barbados. This is anther one of the Exceptional Cask Selection rums that Foursquare release, specifically the 11th bottling in the series. As we expect with Foursquare rums, this one is a blend of rums distilled on both pot stills and column stills with the blending done prior to maturation (as white rum). A proportion of the rum is aged in casks that previous held bourbon (ex-bourbon casks) and a proportion of the rum is aged in casks that previously held Madeira – both set of rums were aged for 12 years, tropically in Barbados, and the resulting rums were then blend together at a super secret ratio to produce the final rum for the bottling. The bottle says it was released in August 2019 but we got it in the UK in November of that year with around 9000 bottles making their way to Europe.

This is another one of the randomly named bottles that seem to make up the ECS series, not that the name has any relevance to the rum in the bottle in terms of my views on it, I just find the whole thing a bit daft now. Sagacity. If like me, you though this was a City called Saga then you were wrong and if you look at any of the other rum blogs it’s been pointed out many times, that this means “the quality of being sagacious” – that doesn’t really help, so I had to google “sagacious” too; apparently it means possessing sound judgement, I guess you could call “wisdom”. It’s getting to the point where it takes more blog space explaining what these names mean than the blurb about the actual makeup of the rum – don’t even get me started on Plenipotenziario!

Not coloured, not chill filtered and bottled at 48% abv.

Sugar? Nope.

Nose: Lots of lovely warm oak at first with soft vanilla, toasted coconut and furniture polish. Quite fruity but rich fruits, not your tropical variety, so we’re talking prunes, figs, blackberries, blackcurrants and black cherries. Then there’s a beautiful chocolate note that comes out, like a low cacao dark chocolate  such as Bournville which is quite rich but also creamy – this, mixed with all those dark fruits, gives an almost Black Forest gateau type smell. At the end there are some roasted walnuts and pecans coming from the Madeira too.

Palate: Full mouth feel, oily. Quite sweet at first with black cherry jam on toast, that chocolate from the nose and vanilla cream – yeah, we’re back to Black Forest gateau again, yum time! There’s a little heat here and a slight gingery biscuit note but it’s welcome after the initial sweet start. Once again, lovely warm oaky notes and dried coconut, some leather and a little earthy mushroom. Some spicy heat comes back towards the end with black pepper or more intense ginger as it finishes.

Finish: Medium. Still a bit spicy on the finish and a little tannic. Much drier here than on the palate and the chocolate is much darker too. Breakfast tea, a little damp wood or leafy note and raw walnuts. At one point a flash of orange pops up with some cinnamon but it doesn’t hang around to too long. Still the dark fruits, but not sweet, it’s hard to explain. If you could imagine the taste of something like black cherry and it’s flavour but without any of the sweetness with it. Not the longest finish in the world and it doesn’t add a massive amount extra to the whole, but it’s very moreish.

Thoughts? At the time of writing this review I’m really enjoying the rum but it’s taken a while to get here. I’ve done this review with the bottle open for about 3 months and at first I was struggling to really find anything different from other “cask type” Foursquare rums – it initially reminded me a lot of Doorly’s 12 year old which I’ve found a bit…….meh……..I was just getting lots of oak. Now though the Madeira is really coming out and bringing all its lovely rich flavours with it. The testament to this is that it took 3 months to get half way down the bottle and then 2 weeks to finish the rest of it off after that point!

It’s really easy to drink and a big step up from Doorly’s in terms of complexity levels. There’s good balance between the oak and the dark fruit but the burst of heat as you swallow does catch you out. I must admit, whilst very good rum indeed, it’s not my favourite ECS release – this is mainly because the others are so good and I judge each ECS release against the previous ones rather than other rums out there, I really shouldn’t do it but it’s human nature.

Ok, so we have to use the internet to find out what Foursquare rums now mean, so here’s one for you:

“Exceptional” – unusual; not typical.

When you are frequently putting out “Exceptional” rums, what are they exceptional against? You’re own rums? If you’re putting out more exceptional rums than “standard” rums then they are no longer the exception, they are now typical and usual and this is what the ECS releases have become; the Foursquare norm. They are not normal rums, they are Foursquare rums, which by definition makes them exceptional in the wider rum world, that’s for sure – but as far as releases from Foursquare go, no, no longer exceptional. We’re on ECS 11 with this, let’s do away with the silly names and the whole “Exceptional Cask” thing now and just start calling these Foursquare rums.

This set me back £48. Would I buy another? Too damn right. Yeah, so it’s not my favourite ECS rum, but for under 50 notes it’s still a banger.

You can pick this up from The Whisky Exchange here:

Foursquare Sagacity