This young, pot still rum distilled by Worthy Park gave us notes of overripe banana with hints of butter, pear, flower shop, cinnamon, and ginger.

Hamilton Jamaican Pot Still Blonde Rum is a lightly aged pot still rum distilled by Worthy Park in Jamaica, and bottled by Ed Hamilton’s Ministry of Rum. Along with interesting limited cask picks, Hamilton is known for solid quality rums that tend to check a box (e.g. if you don’t get Lemon Hart 151 where you live, Hamilton Demerara 151 fits the bill). If the box is “lightly aged, funk-forward Jamaica” Pot Still Blonde certainly checks that box. Bottled at 45% ABV, the back label informs you this rum was “aged at least six months in Westfield, NY”. 6 months is a relatively short time to spend in a cask, and especially in a non-tropical climate, you get the sense the goal was to technically have an aged rum, with minimal cask interference (perhaps with a stern eye towards minimizing costs). While it’s a little clunky, the website linked on the back of the bottle is a master class in transparency.

Among the included information is the statement “There was no caramel or sugar added to this rum after distillation.” which checks out in our tests; we recorded a density of 0.936g/cc, not indicative of any added sugar.

The nose leans into a funky pungency; overripe banana esters (I see you Worthy Park), some floral notes, some butter, a little BO, an maybe some pear. The palate is light; more overripe banana and just enough baking spice to let you know it saw the inside of a cask (primarily cinnamon and ginger). If there’s any more fruitiness it’s probably in the form of grape must or raisin The finish is moderate but solid; notes of ginger and (you guessed it) overripe banana dominate.

In our blind taste test it performed decently as a neat sipper (6.9/10) and pretty well as a mixer (7.4/10). In a daiquiri it was flavorful and had plenty of personality, but lacked something in cohesion. It’s tempting to compare the Pot Still Blonde to something like Smith & Cross as see a list of deficits: it’s got a little less age, quite a bit lower ABV, not as nice a bottle. But I’m inclined to say that comparison hides as much as it reveals. This rum is unlikely to be a successful first introduction into Jamaica, but if you’re looking for something that is more approachable than Rum Fire or Wray and Nephew, but a little wilder than Smith and Cross, Hamilton Jamaican Pot Still Blonde certainly has a niche.