Tasting Notes for Hampden Estate LROK The Younger
Nose: Delicate and refined. Mango, banana, pepper, a touch of varnish.
Taste: Light and tasty. Fresh pineapple juice with orange zest.
Finish: Extended and pleasant. Cane juice and cloves.
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Hampden Estate have recently introduced this Hampden 2016 LROK The Younger due to the incredible popular demand which they are seeing for their LROK rums. This rum combines the aromatic intensity of tropical ripening with the freshness of a young rum. With an ester content of 314.8 g / hlpa and an overall high proportion of flavour-bearing congeners, exotic flavours from mango to fresh pineapple juice and orange peel to cloves unfold.
The Hampden Estate is quickly becoming acknowledged by spirits experts as one of the most important producers of any kind anywhere in the world. What was once relegated to blenders' warehouses has now been established as one of the finest spirits producers in the world. The brand's identity is intertwined with the famous Italian importer, Luca Gargano, who revived its image and helped to blend and market the first tropically aged, distillery bottled versions of this special product.
Known for its wild fermentations and pot-still distillations, Hampden Estate is able to produce a large quantity of different rums. Each of these rums has a "mark". The one we are interested in here is a LROK (Light Rum Owen Kelly) and refers to a rum with a high ester concentration, ranging from 200 to 400 g/hLPA. This mark created in 1952 belongs to the wedderburn category, ie: the heavy rums.
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Hampden is an old-line Jamaican rum distillery which has been in continuous production since 1753, and is by far the most unchanged from how it looked and operated hundreds of years ago. It produces the funkiest, highest ester rum of any Jamaican distillery, the direct result of a fermentation process that is unique, and impossible to replicate anywhere else. 250 years of fermentation in the same room have built up a unique microbiota of fungus and yeast which populate a mystery fluid residing in brick-lined pits set into the ground, and start fermenting. This process takes a variable amount of time from batch to batch and can last up to several weeks, with the antique fermentation room and ancient equipment monitored by the most high tech devices available to ensure that its fermented molasses is only moved to the still house when it is just right.
Hampden has four pot stills from three continents: Two Forsyths from Scotland, a Vendome from Kentucky, and the last from T&T Engineering in South Africa and is one of only 2 Jamaican distilleries which are pot still only. Maturation is done on site, and the ageing rooms are in an adjoining building, along with the large “pool” where they produce the pure sugar cane vinegar which, added at the fermentation stage, gives Hampden rum its unique and unmistakable aromatic bouquet.
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Producer Hampden Estate Distillery Style Single Pot Still Rum Age 5 years tropical aging in Jamaica Volume 70CL ABV 47%