Doctor Bird Pot Still

So I finally got my hands on a bottle of this rum after trying to acquire it for over a year…and man, this is a real doozy and a fascinating rum. This is rum comes from Worthy Park, in St. Catherine, Jamaica. It is a high ester young aged rum finished in Moscatel casks by Corktown Distillery in Detroit Michigan. It comes in a wonderful artistically designed bottle (I absolutely love the bottle). It weighs in at a respectable 50% ABV and that comes through on the palate

Nosing it, right away it is immediately recognizable as a Worthy Park rum. Worthy Park rums, especially the young aged ones are just a massive overload of bananas and fruit. This one is no exception. In fact it’s even more pungent on the nose than most other Worthy Park rums I have had. I might even say it’s funkier on the nose than Rum Bar Overproof, the unaged pot still fresh Overproof produced at Worthy Park. Actually in many respects this is similar to Worthy Park Overproof when that rum is diluted down a bit, which makes sense.

So enough with the pleasantries. The nose here is crazy complex. In fact it’s one of the most complex noses I have ever sensed on any rum. This is a straight up olifactory jigsaw puzzle. Nosing it from the Glencairn I get dark purple grape juice, oodles of Bananas foster, dark chocolate, cherry cola, apple cider vinegar, strawberry shortcake and modelers glue. This is straight up crazy wacky funky, even by Jamaican standards. On the nose this may well be the funkiest rum I have ever had. It is definitely a different kind of funk than Hampden and Smith & Cross but somehow it’s even more expressive. I didn’t even think that was possible. Ha!

On the palate I am a bit let down. As amazing as the nose is, it unfortunately doesn’t translate to the palate. And that’s a real shame here because, man, I would LOVE to have the nose on this rum expressed on the tongue. That’s in no way to say that the palate is bad. It’s not. In fact the palate is certainly decent enough…it’s just a let down when compared to the nose. As far as the palate goes I get Tennessee Whiskey, white grape juice, apple cider, pear juice, butterscotch, sangria, and a touch of muscadine wine. That’s a decent combination which is further smoothed out a bit by the addition of a small amount of water. Straight it is interesting but a bit sharp and disjointed on the tongue. After sipping it a while a harmony begins stabilize and the experience is quite enjoyable. But man I can’t stop thinking of how amazing this rum could be if the nose could be expressed in force on the palate.

We really need to talk about the finish on this rum…or rather the lack thereof. I am shockingly disappointed to find that this rum has virtually no finish or aftertaste at all. Once it goes down it’s just gone. Maybe some of the muscadine and sangria notes flicker faintly for a second but I am really quite stunned to find that this rum has almost no finish/aftertaste at all. That’s especially odd when I remember that Rum Bar Overproof had an exceptionally long finish for an unaged Overproof. This is so odd and quite a bit disappointing.

This rum is really hard to rate with a single number. The nose is mind blowing, just crazy good and complex. The palate is decent but a very different expression compared to the nose and not near as complex or harmonious. And there is no finish at all. This is tying my rum brain in knots. It’s like a firework show with no finale. Don’t get me wrong though, on the whole it’s still a great experience, it just falls short of its own expectations