Blackadder 1995 Finest New Yarmouth Jamaican 26-Year

The bottle is going to run you several hundred dollars if you can even get one. So, yeah, it should be good, right?... Well, anyone who's been lucky enough to have a few expensive bottles can tell you that sometimes you pay for rarity, not quality.

Fortunately, that's not the case here. At this price, anything short of orgasmic is a little underwhelming, but... Add a little cold water to cut the 66.8% fire, maybe let it breathe a bit, and you get a rum of remarkable subtlety. That the oak is not overwhelming at this age is surprising; it's well balanced with the molasses and tobacco I want in a sipping rum.

I might "complain" that the aging has smoothed out almost all the funk I want in a Jamaican. That will be a plus to most, I bet. The end result is like a high octane Old Fashioned in a bottle.