Mount Gay unveils Andean Oak Cask

Mount Gay has unveiled the latest in its Master Blender Collection: Andean Oak Cask, the fourth in this limited-edition series.

To produce this unique batch of only 2,760 bottles, the distillery’s first female Master Blender Trudiann Branker turned to Andean oak, a non-traditional wood choice, to explore another layer of aromatic complexity. The casks were used for 11 months to finish the ageing of asingle batch of rums distilled twice in traditional copper pot still and aged 14 years in ex-Bourbon casks.

Of the small batch, only 215 have been allocated for sale in Barbados, Branker revealed during the launch at the Great House, Mount Gay Distilleries, St. Lucy on Wednesday night.

Bottled at 48% ABV, Andean Oak Cask is said to have an aroma of Vanilla, Candied Fruit, and Flora, with a “Oaky, Spicy, Nutmeg, Almond, Vanilla” taste.

She said The Master Blender Collection showcases the brand’s passion for innovation.

“We are very good at making rum, we have been doing it for over 300 years and you are always very familiar with our XO, Eclipse, Black Barrel. But our Master Blender Collection is how we show our innovation side of things. It’s how we show you that not only are we the longest running distillery in the world, but we also are pioneers, and we also are innovators at what we do, and we really showcase this through the Master Blender Collection.”   

Andean Oak Cask joins the 2020 Master Blender Collection “The Port Cask Expression” and the 2019 “Pot Still Rum” both also crafted by Branker, and the 2018 “XO: The Peat Smoke Expressions” created by Allen Smith, the former Mount Gay Master Blender.

The Master Blender further divulged, “Andean Oak Cask is special for two specific reasons. The first being that it’s a 14-year-old pot still… It is extremely difficult to mature rum to 14 years in Barbados and still have enough rum for us to share with you here today.   

“On top of that it was an opportunity for us to work with virgin oak casks, which is not something you see in our traditional rums that you have access to every day. And for Andean Oak we were able to not only design a cask but go through the process of understanding what happens when rum matures in this new cask type that we had no information about - we could find no literature on rum being aged in before. So, this was really an exercise for us in innovation, in knowledge building, in going on a journey with our rum for the first time - a new journey,” Branker expressed.

“And as we would have started to sample and look at the different blends and the different rums that were ageing in Andean Oak, one really stood out and that was pot still. So, that is how we arrived at a 14-year-old pot still which was aged in ex-Bourbon cast first, and then finished for 11 months in this virgin Andean Oak.”