This molasses based pot still rum from Hampden Estate gave us notes of pineapple, oak and solvent, with hints of coconut, banana, pepper, ginger, mango and dried stone fruit.

According to their website, this 8 year old pot still expression is part of Hampden’s “Core Range” (interestingly, along with the HLCF Classic, Pagos, and Great House releases), but besides Rum Fire it’s probably the proper Hampden bottling you’re most likely to see in the wild. To my knowledge it kicked off Hampden’s aesthetic hallmark of plastering the front of their bottles in text which, while a bit visually busy, gets across how much they care about the specifics of their distillate. That wall of text calls out that the rum is entirely tropically aged, 100% pot still, fermented with natural yeasts, and free of additives. And free of additives it is; we measured a density of 0.938g/cc indicating no added sugar.

On the nose the main notes are fruits, solvents and wood. While pineapple and banana are both certainly present, I find the pineapple to be a bit stronger, particularly when compared alongside banana-bombs like Rum-Bar Gold. The oak is pretty moderate for eight years, but really pleasant and balanced. The nose is rounded out by some vanilla, and hints of other dried fruits (apricot, apple). On the palate the rum develops a more spice-forward profile: ginger, cinnamon and pepper, which accents the strong ester-y pineapple base. It punches above its 46% ABV flavor-wise. For the proof the finish is reasonably satisfying, leaning into dry oak.

In our blind taste test Hampden 8 performed great as a neat pour (8.1/10) and even better mixed in a daiquiri (8.6/10). As a mixer it walked the line of being interesting, without throwing the drink our of balaance. To me, perhaps counter intuitively, the most impressive thing about Hampden 8 is not punchy ester profile, but how effortlessly and substantially the cask shows up without overpowering or disagreeing with the funk.