Black Tot Master Blender’s Reserve Rum 2024 70 cl. 54,5%
Blended Premium Aged Rum
Every year, Master Blender Oliver Chilton makes a new edition of Black Tot Master Blender’s Reserve, and in the 2024 edition, the focus is on the fruity side of navy rum: Barbados! The components from Barbados make up 60% of the rum this year, and among them you will find a 22-year-old rum from Mount Gay!
Also, there is a good deal of Trinidad, a bit of Jamaica and a bit of Guyana. Highlights include a 26 year old Caroni, a 25 year old Clarendon and a pinch of 28 year old New Yarmouth! Wowza!
As tradition dictates, there is also a bit of last year’s Master Blender’s Reserve in (almost 4%) as well as a bit of the original Navy rum.
The rum has no added sugar and is not cold-filtered – and it is bottled at a lovely 54.5%.
Colour: Dark amber.
Scent: A scent with full blast of the tropical: grilled pineapple, mint, strawberry, lime, chilli and coconut.
Tasting notes: Rich, buttery rum that slowly coats the tongue with notes of manuka honey, banana, vanilla bean and mango. In the aftertaste there is licorice and dark chocolate.
Serving suggestions: Probably best enjoyed neat.
The name Black Tot evokes a special feeling in history-obsessed rum fans. The name comes from the fateful Black Tot Day – 31 July 1970 – which was the day the British Navy carried out for the last time the centuries-old tradition of daily pourings of rum. By this time it had dawned on the majority that a daily serving of 7cl of strong rum (54.5%) was incompatible with nuclear submarines and missiles, and from then on the fleet’s remaining stock of rum was filled into stoneware flasks and stored, only for use on special occasions such as royal weddings or diplomatic events. And so the navy rum was more or less forgotten for decades, until Sukhinder Singh of Elixir Distillers got his hands on a few of the original bottles of the real navy rum from before 1970. This ultra-rare fluid was bottled under the name Black Tot, and most recently Sukhinder and the team behind Elixir Distillers also created a modern blend, inspired by the old, original rum.
