Jamaican rum week continues. On Monday I reviewed a 15 yo Long Pond that I liked a lot and which I said reminded me of rum from Worthy Park. And today I have a 16 yo Worthy Park. Well, I don’t think it was bottled with that name on the label but that is the distillery in question. This was a single cask bottled by the Thompson brothers of Dornoch Castle fame for K&L in California. I don’t believe I’ve ever had a Worthy Park I didn’t like—I don’t mean to give the impression that I’ve tried so very many of them. Let’s hope this won’t be the first.

Worthy Park 16, 2005, Rum (54%; Thompson Bros.; from a sample split)

Nose: Oh yes, quite a bit more funk in this one with motor oil, diesel and just a whiff of ripe garbage heap. Quite a bit of aniseed on the second sniff. As it sits there’s more fruit—dried tangerine peel—along with cinnamon and clove and quite a bit of caramel. With a lot of time and air the caramel lightens a bit and picks up some toffee and some plum sauce. A few drops of water and it seems to get sort of…flat: the funk and the fruit recede and are replaced by brown sugar.

Palate: Comes in with the caramel and orange peel in the lead—the whole stirred with a stick of burnt cinnamon. Very approachable at full strength; good texture. Spicier as it goes, with more cinnamon and some pepper. As it sits, the caramel expands further and the diesel and motor oil begin to come through here as well along with the aniseed; some sage in there as well. With more time still, there’s some caramelized banana. Okay, let’s add some water. Simpler here too with water and a bit sharper.

Finish: Long. The caramel gets spicier as it fades with some mentholated coolness at the end. With time there’s a savoury char that lingers as well. With water the oak gets more pronounced at first and then the last impression is of over-sweetened, cold black tea.

Comments: Well, this is generally a “darker”, slightly funkier version of Monday’s Long Pond. Very tasty indeed but better, in my opinion, at full strength—which, long-term readers know, is not something I say very often about any high abv spirit.

Rating: 87 points.