Neisson Reserve Speciale

I’m just starting off down the Martinique rabbit hole and this was my first proper aged bottle I’ve bought. I’ve tried a few others, but this one is the best of them thus far. Really quite smooth, with some bourbon-y notes at first (vanilla, baking spices, etc), but followed by the unmistakable flavor of raw cane and grass. Really nice sipper, especially to introduce people to vieux agricoles.

This rum is quite dry; I prefer a touch of sweetness in my rums.

Vegetal sugarcane, oak, vanilla, and pepper. Not bad, but not a great rum either, imho. Not worth the price to me of $69.99 (K&L Wines 2015).

This is a very dry rum with a great deal of oak. Unmistakably agricole with great character of age - it's worth sitting down and spending time with.

This is my first agricole of any type. Bought it for creating certain tiki drinks. I've tried a sip but need to try again to get a true idea if it's qualities. It certainly was nice in my Three Dots and a Dash.

Aged agricole to me are usually too oaky and tame, losing the freshness that makes blancs so great. This one is a great balance and retains some of that agricole bite to it.

Very good neat, but not as smooth as I would hope for a rum at this price point.

Rum tasting in Los Angeles continued onwards with Neisson Reserve Speciale Rum. Old school bottle and label design. Light golden color. Plenty of oak mixed with vegetal and floral Rhum Agricole notes to your nose and palate when neat sipped. Strong and dry burn at the end.

This is a very dry, earthy agricole with strong grass notes. It's a bit rough but still easily sippable neat. Will need to compare with Neisson white.

It's about what I figured from Neisson, it's slightly smoother.

For a Martinique vieux agricole, it’s not so bad - surely a costly addition to any US collection, and questionably suitable as such for that alone. But it’s a smooth talker with just a memory of its fiery past as an ardent blanc from 12 years ago. It has been hard to truly like vieux agricoles over 8 yrs, in general; for me, it’s all about that fiery youth that makes this style shine, and so much of that is lost in the adulteration of the spirit during the fût sitting period. It’s certainly a handsome bottle presentation, and a fine selection for your regular whiskey aficionado, but the mellowness just kinda loses me with the hint of sweetness presumably imparted by the charred barrel and a flabbiness associated with middling French red wines.

All said and done, this is a fine example of a vieux agricole in the upper end of the aged spectrum - not a standout, but far better than El Dorado’s equivalent expression.