All told, despite the slightly enhanced aging regimen and longer period in bourbon barrels, it’s not a dramatic departure from the Black Barrel you may already know and love. As with the original I get that flambeed banana, infused with dense vanilla extract and a touch of cocoa powder. There’s fruit here but, as with the older bottling, it takes its sweet time to show its face. The palate is quite savory and heavy with oak notes, brown/almost-burnt sugars, and more of that dense molasses. The nose is rich and woody, with notes of molasses, vanilla, and chimney soot in the mix. Mount Gay Black Barrel Rum (2020) – I’ve no older bottling of this for comparison, alas, but based on memory and my old tasting notes, the soul of Black Barrel hasn’t changed. Sounds good, but how do the new bottlings fare? Let’s taste (including a comparison against a 2008 vintage bottle of Mount Gay Extra Old).īoth are bottled at 86 proof. The adjustments to the blend aim to enhance the liquid’s ultimate complexity.”īoth the labels and decanter choice have changed fairly dramatically, as well. Mount Gay XO has been “enriched with a broader palette of rums selected, individually aged in three different casks – American Whiskey, Bourbon and Cognac – for five to 17 years, rather than the previous eight to 15 years. The finishing period in deeply charred bourbon casks will be extended to six months, greatly lengthened from the previous four week finishing period.” Mount Gay Black Barrel is an all-new blend which “features an older selection of rums, moving to a blend of three to seven-year-old rums as opposed to the previous two to seven years, with a higher content of double distilled pot still rums. (These were unveiled at an event called the Mount Gay Brand Reset - designed to “embrace transparency with an in-depth look into the brand and its premium liquids.”) Mount Gay’s Black Barrel and XO Rum expressions have both been around for some time - Black Barrel is the newbie, released originally in 2013 XO was rebranded from its original “ Extra Old” some time around then too - but in 2020 the Barbados-based distillery revamped both of these venerable bottlings.
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