Holmes Cay 2004 Fiji 16-Year

Holmes Cay Fiji 2004 is a 16 year old (12 years in Fiji in ex-bourbon and 4 years in UK in American Oak), 100% pot distilled rum from South Pacific Distilleries in Fiji and bottled at 58%. This rum is limited to 240 bottles.

This rum is very heavy, and packs lots of heat but if you can get past that, it is loaded with delicious flavors and aromas.

In the glass it's amber color and leaves a thin coating on the glass.

The nose starts with mild ethanol, chocolate, hints of oak and vanilla, and a bit of lemon. After allowing it to breathe in the glass, we start to detect honey and tobacco. Each time we came back to this, the listed aromas varied in intensity. Sometimes the tobacco was dominant, and other times it was the chocolate. Really interesting.

The palette can be hot, but get past that and you'll detect oak, lemon and baking spices like pepper and nutmeg.

The finish is medium length. The heat sticks around for a while and leaves behind some oak and vanilla.

We tried a few drops of water to make this a bit easier to drink, but the water damped down the flavors, more than it reduced the heat.

This product is incredibly tasty, but it can be difficult to drink, if you are not accustomed to high proof spirits.

Holmes Cay found a unique aged rum and it's a treat to be able to taste these, without unnecessary additives. We are going to visit this bottle again and again.

This bottling of Holmes Cay comes from the South Pacific Distillery on the island of Fiji. It was distilled in 2004 and was allowed to rest in American oak for 16 years. It was bottled at 58% cask strength without dyes or filtration.

The rum has a very balanced creamy nose. Caramel, vanilla, toasted barrel, candied fruit, burnt sugar and nut. In addition, a nice fruit note. The whole thing is nicely round with a good complexity. On the palate, the rum remains creamy with caramel, vanilla, butterscotch, confectionery, burnt sugar and nut. The finish is then more woody and has nice roasted aromas.

A very tasty pleasing cask strength rum. The alcohol is very well integrated. Reminiscent of Foursquare. It's a bit too creamy for me and not my preferred South Pacific profile. But it's great to be able to try a US bottling.

Diese Abfüllung von Holmes Cay kommt aus der South Pacific Distillerie auf der Insel Fiji. Er wurde 2004 destilliert und durfte 16 Jahre in amerikanischer Eiche ruhen. Abgefüllt wurde er mit 58% Fassstärke ohne Farbstoffe oder Filtration.

Der Rum hat eine sehr ausgewogene cremige Nase. Karamel, Vanille getoastetes Fass, kandierte Früchte, gebrannter Zucker und Nuss. Dazu eine schöne Frucht Note. Das ganze ist schön rund mit einer guten Komplexität. Am Gaumen bleibt der Rum cremig mit Karamel, Vanille, Butterscotch, Konfekt, gebranntem Zucker und Nuss. Der Abgang ist dann holziger und hat schöne Röstaromen.

Ein sehr leckerer gefälliger Fassstärke Rum. Der Alkohol ist sehr gut eingebunden. Erinnert an Foursquare. Mir ist er etwas zu cremig und nicht mein bevorzugtes South Pacific Profil. Aber toll auch mal eine US Abfüllung probieren zu können.

This is one of my favorites. Very little of the industrial notes described with some Fiji bottlings - much more on the toffee end of things, but with pot-still complexity.