Mhoba Strand 101° - 58%
Picture taken at Roche Bobois Stuttgart
Named after their expressive danish distributor, this release is a mix of a heavily wood treated glass cask and a high ester batch. In a fit of creativity Knud mixed this in hope to level the extreme (fighting fire with fire as you know). Let's find out if he succeeded.
Nose
This stuff kicks a*s! What a crazy nose. Pure sweet-and-sour Raspberry concentrate on vanilla ice cream and a few drops of nail polish. All served with melted goat cheese, fried plantains and freshly squeezed sugar cane (obvious). This combination of delicate and sour notes is a real treat. In terms of rum style this sits right between some high ester Jamaicans and a clairin from Haiti (so Mhoba Island if you want).
With water: A bit fresher and more on nobles woods and melted butter now.
Palate
Tons of exotic woods were just offloaded on the palate. Even if we are no termites, this somehow works.
The body is heavy with a thick and dense cane sweetness. There is also milk chocolate, caramel and some liquorice. Rum has so much natural sweetness that we still wonder how some producers dare to add additional sugar to the process. We also find a nice mezcal-y-ness of burnt agaves and an idea of burnt rubber tubes in it (as if they used a few drops of 1998 Caroni).
Finish
Medium long and drier than a desert, coating the whole mouth with wood, burnt agaves and plastics.
Rating
Very fascinating and expressive liquid, that's for sure. The nose was fantastic. We are not the biggest fans of so much wood influence on the palate, but quite sure that there are enough woodworms on the planet who will highly appreciate this. With such a potential and fair price tag, you will be hearing more from those South African fellows in the near future! In radio language: Experiment succeeded.Over.
