This 12 year old Port Cask finish from Worthy Park in Jamaica is clearly a good rum, but how does it stack up as a work of cask finish auteurship?

Special Cask Series Port 2010 is a pot still rum from Jamaican distillery Worthy Park aged for 10 years and bottled at 45%. Out of the distilleries own bottlings the Special Cask Series is positioned below the 12 year old Single Estate Reserve, but above basically everything else. It’s fair to say I’m down bad for Worthy Park—I would try to deny it, but the evidence keeps mounting—and so the stakes here are a bit less “do I like it?” (spoiler alert, I do) and more so “is it a good cask finish?” After distillation in 2010 it spent 8 years in ex-bourbon barrels, and then 2 years in ex-port barrels, which in my opinion is a decent bit of ex-port contact.

We measured a density of 0.910g/cc and a refractive index of 1.3609, indicating no additives (duh).

On the nose it’s remarkably warm: there’s classic worthy park banana, dried red fruit, vanilla, and yes, plenty of port, but more of a port reduction that’s simmered on the stove for an afternoon and has just been poured over a rum cake. The palate continues with plenty of banana and adjacent fruitiness, and adds a ton of spice. There’s some nutmeg and ginger, but the dominant note is allspice. Toasted sugar and a bit of ester-y funk bring up the rear. The finish is reasonably strong considering its 45% ABV proof, and adds a bit of leather to the fruity-spiciness of the palate. It’s striking how little “oak” as a flavor by itself shows up, and in the context of the whole experience I don’t miss it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s there in spice and toasted sugar notes, but at no point does it really taste like you’re licking a barrel.

In our blind taste test we thought it was great as a neat sipper (8.1/10), and both incredible and unique mixed into a daiquiri (9/10). It’s a good rum! But how does is stack up as a cask finish? One obvious point of comparison is Doctor Bird, which, while bottled by Two James distillery, takes Worthy Park rum and finished it in moscatel casks. Another bottle that shares several bits of biography is Foursquare’s Détente—of course Foursquare and Worthy Park are as different as, well, Barbados and Jamaica, but hear me out: both were finished in ex-port casks, both were aged for 10 years—specifically from 2010 to 2020 (spooky), and both were finished and bottled by the same company that distilled them.

Compared to both these bottles the Special Cask Series is a bit more laid back; it’s obviously lower proof, and while it’s much older than Doctor Bird, it has much less tannic oak in it than Détente. Doctor Bird over shadows it’s moscatel influence a bit with its ripe, relatively young ester profile, and the Détente (while delicious) has a bit more distance between its main profile and its finish. It’s kind of saying “hi I am a member of the ECS line, and here is my dear friend, ex-port cask”—you believe they’re friends, but you understand they’re two distinct people. Comparatively, the Worthy Park Port really tastes like one, integrated thing. The baked banana and thick, reduced port aren’t fighting for attention, they’re playing a duet in sync, part of the same performance. It’s possible that its lower proof lets it avoid tasting like its constituent parts are fighting, and to be fair if I had one wish for this bottle it would be to bump its proof just a few points.

I don’t think there’s one “right way” to do a cask finish; rounding out a young, fiery pot distillate, and/or providing a counterpoint to a strong bourbon-oak note (as Doctor Bird and Détente do respectively) are reasonable goals. But when it comes to the Special Cask Series Port, the degree to which the cask finish really marries with the original distillate is more than enough for me to say this is a successful cask finish.

 

The Superficial: A similar treatment to the Worthy Park Single Estate 2006; The bottle is nice and sturdy, with a large wooden cap and natural cork stopper. There’s something about the texture of the label that feels a bit thin and cheap, and personally the label design somehow feels both busy and uninteresting. I wish the bottle did a better job of signaling how special the distillate inside is.