This vintage installment in the Foursquare ECS line gave us notes of vanilla and oak, with subtler hints of brown sugar, ginger, and chemical.

A natural consequence of maintaining a line of annual limited releases is that each year will inevitably be compared to the previous, and if you have a single off year, it’s likely to be noticed. In such a case, what could’ve been a perfectly good standalone rum suffers from the success of the line in general. This is, in a nutshell, the 2010 ECS.

When tasted alongside its two older siblings, the 2008 and 2009, it’s immediately clear the 2010 is milder. A lot milder. You have to get your snout relatively close to the snifter before you’re really hit with what you know you’re supposed to be smelling: oak and vanilla. The oak is clear, if a bit understated, but the vanilla is a bit shy. If you stick around you might catch a little banana. On the palate, the oak and vanilla continue mildly, with some cinnamon added to the mix. There’s a bit of a chemical note that makes the ethanol content obvious with a subtle hint of dried fruit that’s hard to place, maybe raisin. By the time it makes it to the pack of your mouth a bit of brown sugar rounds out the profile. On the finish, there’s chocolate and ginger, oak and vanilla, but it’s still plagued by that chemical note that’s difficult to not consider a fault.

In our blind taste test the 2010’s milder profile made it a less compelling sipper (7.2/10) than even Doorly’s 12, our reference rum (7.6/10)—though I would attribute this to the fact we proofed the 2010 down to match Doorly’s 43% ABV; to be sure I would not recommend proofing down the 2010 at all. Interestingly that same mildness made it more palatable in a cocktail (7.4/10), though I wouldn’t advise shelling out for an ECS bottle if you’re looking for a mixer. Ultimately it’s a good rum that’s rendered a little disappointing by great expectations.