Appleton Estate

Rum has been distilled at Appleton since at least 1709, with the brand citing 1749 as its founding. The modern story starts in 1825, when the publican John Wray bought the Shakespeare Tavern in Kingston and began blending estate rum. His nephew C.J. Ward joined in 1860, giving us J. Wray & Nephew. The first rum to carry the Appleton Estate name appeared around 1944, and after a long chain of owners the company passed to Italy's Gruppo Campari in 2012.

Appleton sits in Jamaica's St. Elizabeth parish, tucked behind the Cockpit Country, a strange limestone karst of cone-shaped hills found almost nowhere else. The estate grows its own cane and draws water from a striking turquoise spring filtered through that limestone. Master blender Joy Spence credits the cane and water for Appleton's signature orange-peel note, the thing that makes a glass unmistakable.

Five huge Forsyths double-retort copper pot stills run alongside column stills in one stillhouse. Unusually for a heavy-rum island, Appleton uses no dunder and a short 36-hour fermentation, which is why its house style is a polished, fruity funk rather than the wild intensity of Hampden. Every Appleton is a blend of pot and column rum, aged in ex-bourbon casks across the company's many Jamaican warehouses.

Joy Spence joined as chief chemist in 1979 and became the spirits industry's first female master blender. Her range runs from the everyday Signature Blend and 8 Year up to the Reserve, 12, 15 and the prized 21 Year. Appleton history runs deep here: the long-gone Wray & Nephew 17 was the rum in the original 1944 Mai Tai, and surviving bottles have been valued in the tens of thousands.

On RumX the most-reviewed Appletons are the accessible Signature Blend and the aged 12 and 21 Year. The highest community scores, though, go to cask-strength vintage rum from the Velier Appleton Hearts Collection, which sits around 8.8/10, and to old Appleton Reserve and 20 Year bottlings. It is a good reminder that the same distillery behind a supermarket staple also makes some of Jamaica's most collectible aged rum.