Rum Nation 2006 Reunion Savanna

My first high-ester rum. Banana oil, acetic acid, jackfruit, orange peel essential oils. This is the first spirit that I feel is strong enough. It is no worse than Moutai, Jinsha and LuzhouLaojiao.

Beautiful dark bronze color with gray green reflections. This rum has notes of exotic ripe fruit with caramel, brown sugar and citrus. On the second nose, we find licorice, tobacco, leather. It's very complex.
In the mouth, the tobacco and the cigar box is very present. There is also a lot of tannin and bitterness. Pepper notes arrive in the end. Very long in the mouth, it hangs well. To test with a good cigar.
Real rate = 8,5

Initially purchased as a collection set - well, that idea did not exactly age well. Kind of heavy style rum, neither sweet nor dry.
Lets start with bottling and packaging, which is nothing short of awesome (great tube, great etiquette, great cork).
From lots and lots of things claimed to be found in the nose - incl. components I don't even know what they are - I could only safely disginguish orange peel. Otherwise the nose is little bit of a letdown - not bad but resembling many generic cheaper B-level bourbon or sherry Spanish style rums from whatever place you can think. It is labeled as slow fermentation estery rum but I can't quite agree with that. Merely a kids' stuff when compared to Mhoba, Hampden or abundant Caribbean focused indie bottlers.
The palate - weirdly - resembles more whiskey cask rums, which works fine for me. Actually I see a big similarities with green Adrian Rodney whisky cask rum. The body is definitely sweeter than finish, which is more smokey and peppery and leaves you a long wood and coffee feeling on the palate. Loooong aftertaste.
Definitely a good tasting rum, with its 57,65% full of flavor and lot of variable tones - exactly as somewhat more expensive limited indie-bottled rums should have. As a clear mark of good quality rum, I am starting to like it and recognize various flavors "hidden in the shady corners" more and more - hence raised my rating to 8. Definitely a flavorful rum with some unique handwriting.