Tortuga 3 Caroni 1998 24YO Mizunara Finish (20 months in Mizunara) - first ever rum matured in Mizunara wood!

Distillery: Caroni

Distilled: 1998

Bottled: 2023

Bottler: Precious Liquors

Distillation: Pot Still

Aging: UK aged, 20 months of finishing in 1st grade Hokkaido Mizunara oak cask

Bottles: 154

Cask: 2092

ABV: 58,1%

Volume: 700 ml

Bottling info:

The Tortuga No. 3 reimagines Caroni by giving the now defunct distillery an oriental twist. As the first ever Caroni to be finished for nearly 2 years in rare Mizunara Oak from Hokkaido, it merges the flavours of the Caribbean with those of the Far East, taking conservation to a truly global scale. The Sea Turtle Conservancy (STC), founded in 1959 to save sea turtles from imminent extinction, carries out global programmes to conserve and recover sea turtle populations through research, advocacy, and protection of the natural habitats upon which they depend.

The Caroni Tortuga Edition No. 3 supports this cause by raising awareness for the Conservancy's endeavors and enabling consumers to directly contribute to sea turtle conservation through a bottle of the Tortuga No. 3.

The Tortuga Series was created & designed by East Asia Whisky Company. 

The spirit was selected & bottled by Precious Liquors as part of this collaboration.

Tasting note:

Nose: petrol, teak oil, Barbour grease, new tyres, cedarwood and 'a very old pipe full of tar'. A few leaves and stems too (cherry, peach). With water: a little more on moss, old tump, minty mushrooms (blue foot mushrooms, blewit, lepista or clitocybe nuda, it depends)…

Mouth (neat): huge. Think chestnut honey, with some truffle, heavy meat reduction, pine tar, heavy cough syrup (menthol, coriander seeds, eucalyptus) and a drop of turpentine. This feeling of turpentine may – or not – stem from that mizunara wood. With water: sweet petrol, shall we say. The oak's getting a little insistent, maybe. 

Finish: long, between pinewood/mizunara and olives, lemons, liquorice and tar. Some sweeter fruitiness in the aftertaste. Comments: it's absolutely excellent, I just had a bit of trouble understanding everything about the woods they used. Score: 89/100

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