Above: Rum Samaroli Panama 1999
Some of the best Caribbean rum comes from … Scotland?
It does indeed, thanks to the efforts of Samaroli, the semi-secret rum producer that has been quietly making a push to expand its presence in the United States.
Samaroli produces what is undoubtedly the most cosmopolitan rum in the world — it’s selected by an Italian family, comes (largely)from the Caribbean and is matured in Scotland.
The company actually has its origin in Italy with the Bleve family, which is known for the spectacular Casa Bleve wine bar and restaurant in Rome, among others.
Decades ago, the company began working with Silvano Samaroli, who had been selecting and bottling whiskies since 1968.
And while Silvano Samaroli began working with the best scotch whiskies, he soon branched out into rum, with a relatively simple system: find superb local rums from around the world, then mature them in Scotland.
Of course, it’s far more complicated than that: Samaroli has developed an advanced science for his independent bottling, calculating everything from the right time to bottle to the precise characteristics of a given spirit.
Each bottle of Samaroli includes the “birth” year of the cask, the year of bottling, the number of bottles from each cask and an individual bottle number.
Mr Samaroli is adamant that spirits actually can improve after bottling, challenging what he sees as a “common belief that spirits don’t improve after bottling.”
Indeed, for Samaroli, after two or three decades, spirits can lose their “body and structure,” and need to be aged in bottles.
Samaroli matures special Caribbean rums its procures in Scotland, where it says the cooler climate “enables longer aging and consequently cleaner, clear-cut and more elegant rums.”
There are a series of rums from around the world in the Samaroli portfolio, including from Panama, Fiji, Guadeloupe, Brazil and the “Caribbean,” a mysterious rum we’ll explore in an upcoming edition of Rum Journal.
Our most recent encounter with a Samaroli rum came with the Panama Rum 1999, which was bottled in 2013.
This Panama product has a classic amber colour, and an aroma of molasses. The flavour profile has notes of vanilla, nougat, coconut and, naturally, some peat.
It’s an extremely smooth rum, with an exquisite finish.
The verdict? This truly cosmopolitan rum is outstanding.
— CJ