Overproof spirits are undoubtedly hot, and Plantation O.F.T.D Rum is no exception. You would be advised to keep this away from your nose and avoid holding it for too long on your tongue on diluted – lest you enjoy the burning sensation. However, if you’re careful you can find a rather beautiful rum hiding behind the heat. While the O.F.T.D. label says it’s a blend of Barbados, Jamaica, and Guyanese rums, Plantation internally breaks these up into four categories: Barbados Rum Which could perhaps be construed as a criticism. It isn’t. I have argued on numerous occassions about rums being viewed as sipping rums and mixing rums. Many feel that a “mixing” rum is an inferior product. It’s not I genuinely believe that some younger rums such as Myers’s, Woods 100 and Appleton’s Signature Blend (V/X) simply work much better as mixers than they do sippers. I do not think this makes them bad in anyway and it is not a slight against them.

One of the few Plantation rums with an age statement on the label, this might be considered the flagship of Plantation’s “signature blends” lineup, and is one of the brands they’ve been offering longest. The five year age statement is nice, if not particularly impressive—it makes this a “moderately aged” rum. It’s important to note that 3-4 years of that time is tropical aging in Barbados, and the remaining 1-2 years is aging in France in “Ferrand casks” previously used to mature cognac. That’s a significant period, which makes this ultimately a product substantially different than simply a Bajan rum—there’s also the moderate dosage to consider as well. Products like this are at the heart of the dispute between Maison Ferrand and the other Barbados distilleries. Fast forward nearly two years to the very same room where the group had deliberated that December. Mrs. Wonk and I are preparing to run the gauntlet, tasting all nine high-proof rums. Several are ultra-high ester rums, doubling down on their palate-destroying power. To anybody but a hardcore rum geek, this might seem terrifying. For me, these are the sort of moments that make rum writing worth all the effort.It’s perhaps unsurprising, then, that the casual rum drinker and the serious rum geek often have wildly differing reactions and estimation of a company like Plantation Rum. This is a complex topic; one that takes into account ownership, secondary finishing practices, legal lobbying and transparency in labeling. Suffice to say, the Plantation brand has long been something of a lightning rod for discussion among rum devotees. It is interesting that Plantation have dropped the Trinidad rum entirely from the blend. Personally this is a good thing as I don’t really rate the modern Trini rums at all. Together they came up with this blend of Guyana, Jamaica and Barbados rums, bottled at 69 percent alcohol. For Christmas last year, I got Ann Marie a copy of Smuggler’s Cove’s book and our rum collection hasn’t been the same since. The book is a fantastic overview of tiki, talking through the history, providing recipes, and more importantly a list of rums to make the recipes. The list of rums is broken down into categories, typically referring to the base material used (molasses or sugar cane), the form of distillation (column or pot still), and the age (lightly aged, moderately aged, long aged, etc). In addition to these categories, there’s also recommended overproof rums – including Plantation O.F.T.D. Rum On Its Own This is a dark rum. Deep, deep toffee amber. Nothing light about this. Of course the O.F.T.D. stands for "old fashioned traditional dark". Definitely a dark rum. No doubt about it.

O.F.T.D. officially stands for Old Fashioned Traditional Dark but if you ask any of the seven collaborators who were in the room when this blend was born, they'll tell you it really stands for "Oh F*** That's Delicious!"Taste: Obviously warm – but also extremely smooth. Raisins and dates and other preserved fruits play with molasses, creamy caramel, and dark brown sugar. Hints of mellow oak and vanilla come through as well. The ending is full of dark sugar, toasted oak, spice, and caramel. Transformácia cukru na alkohol je vyvolaná pôsobením kvasiniek. Fermentácia môže trvať od niekoľkých hodín (v prípade ľahkých rumov) po niekoľko dní (v prípade zložitejších rumov) až po niekoľko týždňov.

Took me a few sips to get some of a flavor profile because in each sip, once the taste buds detected something, my throat and tongue got a sound thrashing from the 69% ABV (138 proof). In Plantation’s case, though, Original Dark feels like it was named less to take advantage of the category’s loose restrictions, and more to simply fill a gap that consumers expected. There’s no unaged rum in this blend, and the company claims its use of caramel coloring is “solely to adjust—if needed—the color between different batches.” This one is a blend of 1-3 year old column and pot still Barbados rum, and (presumably a smaller quantity) of 10-15 year old Jamaican rum, which are “blended into a wooden vat to age for 3-6 months in the southwest of France.” This is the standard Plantation playbook, as rums are moved from tropical aging to blending and secondary aging in France, often in cognac barrels. O.F.T.D. officially stands for Old Fashioned Traditional Dark but if you ask any of the seven collaborators who were in the room when this blend was born, they’ll tell you it really stands for something else that was exclaimed when the winning rum was tasted… Cask type/Age: ex-Bourbon, ex-Cognac casks, 1997 distillation. 18 years in ex-Bourbon, then 1.5 years minimum in ex-cognac casks I really like the O.F.T.D. in rum and cola’s. It is similar in many ways to Pusser’s. It’s quite sweet but at the same time has quite a lot of “oommph” to it. Which I think is what you want in a rum and cola – especially on a cold night.So what has all the fuss been about? Well firstly I don’t think the intention of this rum was ever as a sipper. I’ve no idea how old the blend in this rum is but I’d be very surprised if overall the blend is over 5 years old.