ou probably know this, but Port Mourant and I are a ” hit or miss ” affair… Either I find it downright disgusting, with the damp woodiness and bitterness present, or I fall completely under its spell because it is so fruity, creamy and pleasant. It is clearly the kind of spirit that never leaves me indifferent, and I still like this ambivalent “love-hate” feeling.
I am thinking mainly of the Bristol Port Mourant 2010 , the Masam 2003 or the Rum Mercenary 2005 which ticked all the right boxes, as far as I am concerned. These references manage to erase the “soapy” side to keep only the fat, the fruit and even a slight malty side that would melt any whisky lover. In short, when it’s good, it’s often great 🙂
In a discussion with John Barrett of Bristol, I remember telling him about other independent bottlers and of course Silvano Samaroli , whom he knew quite well. I explained how I had fallen under the spell of the 2003 series bottled by Corman-Collins/Auld Alliance and Masam.
The latter then sketched a small smile filled with kindness and memory… in short, I understood directly that these barrels more than probably came from Bristol Spirits, given that this is the company’s main activity, selling barrels.
So, when I join the Bristol warehouses in Liverpool with Quentin from C’Rhum, my number one target is not a barrel of Caroni, but to find a barrel of Port Mourant 2003 🙂
Quite quickly on site, I whisper in the ear of Simon Askey who was guiding us, that I would really like to try to find among all these barrels, one of this famous series. But apparently, it was going to be very difficult because blah blah blah… in short, I feel a hint of “ we’ll see, but I really can’t promise you anything Roger… ”
So I understand that it’s not going well, maybe they just want to keep it? Anyway, I continue the visit of the warehouses and taste some references, while not losing sight of this little idea of ​​tasting this vintage.
And there, like a divine apparition, at the turn of hundreds of others, I find myself facing a barrel whose origin is written in pen, and there I see that it is a Guyana (PM) 2003… Isn’t that a party? And no, I don’t think a guy rushed to write that on a barrel while we were walking around, many others were like that 🙂
Anyway, here we are now with an article about this bottling, and even if all the credit goes to Quentin of course, I like to think that without this ” Simon, well there’s one here 😁 “, we might not be here tasting this rum…