Rum from Trinidad

Sitting nine miles off Venezuela, Trinidad has always faced two ways. The Spanish held it until the British took over in 1797, and that mixed heritage shows in the glass. Where Jamaica and Guyana built their fame on heavy pot stills, Trinidad went all-in on the column, making a cleaner, lighter, more continental rum. It is a mid-sized producer, but a distinctive one.

The 20th century turned on three names: Caroni, Fernandes and Angostura. Fernandes gave Trinidad its first vintage rum, the famous 1919, before Angostura absorbed it in 1973. Caroni closed around 2002. That leaves Angostura's Trinidad Distillers as the island's only rum maker, which also happens to be the home of Angostura bitters.

Caroni closed around 2002 and never made another drop, yet it is the most chased closed distillery in rum. Its heavy, oily, almost diesel-like style, carried to the world by Velier, turned a finite warehouse of casks into a collector obsession. Every year the stock shrinks and the prices climb. For many drinkers, hunting down a Caroni is the deep end of the Trinidad story.

The House of Angostura is best known for a bottle few people drink neat, its aromatic bitters, but it is also Trinidad's only rum distillery. The aged Angostura range, led by the 1919, sits at the premium end, while local favourites like Forres Park, White Oak and Royal Oak fill the island's bars. Most of the plant's output actually leaves as bulk rum for blenders worldwide.

On RumX the gateway is the Angostura range, easy to find and easy to like. The summit is Caroni: aged single-distillery rum bottled by Velier climbs past 9.5/10, with the 39th Release, The Last among the most reviewed Trinidad rums of all. Few islands offer such a clean split between an everyday sipper and one of the most collected rums on the planet.