Hamilton Jamaican Pot Still Gold

This is pot still gold rum from the world-famous Worthy Park Estate in Jamaica. The aroma fills the room with spice and dunder and almost off-putting levels of funk...but once you taste this magnificent product, all is right with the world.

In the glass it is pale gold, quite pretty to behold. Nosing it fills the senses with overripe fruit, spices and oak. The flavor is positively sublime and yet mind-stranglingly complex. I love this rum straight up.

I like the pot still flavors left in the rum. Great aroma even mixed with coke.

This is a pale gold rum with a small amount of time in wood. It has bold, boozy, over-ripe pot still character but not to much wood character. Even 1/2 ounce will slap your favorite rum drink in the face and demand it try harder to please. Great in a Mai tai, navy grog, or sidewinders fang. Also good with coke or tonic and lime on ice.

It has taken me years to learn to love this rum and its ability to bring instant richness to any drink. I will add this to other rums straight up for a little kick. Same review for this and the black because they are the same.

But none of it is aged. From Worthy Park, this is a blend of three non-aged rums. Color is from added caramel. The same exact rum as in the Hamilton Jamaica Black, but with a different caramel color(batches will vary slightly).

So pale, yet packed with flavor. The nose is pure hogo, with rotten fruit and fruity earthy tones. On the palate quite smooth and bursting with fruity funk and almost an oaky peatiness. Beachbum says this is what rums used to taste like. I love time traveling in the glass!

The label says Jamaican Pot Still Gold, but the rum from my bottle is almost clear. Both the Gold and the Black have coloring added. I am not a fan of funky Jamaican rums, but the hogo in this one is tolerable.

The nose is almost pure alcohol, and the taste is actually complex and semi-dry. Some bitterness goes down the pipe afterwards. A worthy rum from Worthy Park. This one is also light years better than Wray & Nephew Overproof, which I will never buy again. Anything that I rate below a 6 will never see my rum cabinet again. This one is also fairly cheap at $23.

Definitely not a neat sipper, but it can throw a curve ball when added to other rums such as in tiki drinks. I would not even drink this on the rocks, as it is strictly a mixer unless one gets in one of those weird moods for something really strange, yet drinkable.

As for cooking, adding an ounce of this rum to Walkerswood Jerk Seasoning to marinade meat for 24 hours before going on the smoker was a fantastic idea. The meat wound up with hints of Jamaican dunder every now and then, just enough to let me know that this is real Jamaican Jerk. This rum is worth buying again for this reason alone. Any simple ingredient that can put food over the top is alright with me.

This rum goes down nice and easy giving lots of caramel, fruity, funky flavors. 46.5% is very generous, packing an extra punch of alcohol and flavor. Would be great in tiki or simple drinks or sipped on some ice with lime. This will be an "everyday" rum for sure.

I've heard that the Pot Still Black is just this rum with added coloring, but they do taste different to me (and I prefer this one). The gold has a less unctuous mouthfeel, meaning it's easier to taste the hogo flavors you'd expect from this style of rum. Lots of overripe banana and vanilla in this one, but not with the slap-you-in-the-face intensity of something like Smith & Cross. Works great in cocktails, but it's also the one I reach for when I want a pure pot still sipper.

Like George Clinton in a glass, it's stronger than you want, but funky.