Foursquare's Newest Exceptional Cask Rum Harnesses The Power of Port

While the port cask’s role in the whisky world is well-known, some drinkers would be surprised to find that they’re also popular in aged rum. Here, like in whisky, they’re often used for finishing to impart darker fruit notes, typically following a longer maturation in bourbon barrels. The latest expression from the renowned Foursquare Rum Distillery in Barbados, Mark XXIX: Mandamus, explores the power of port with a notably long secondary maturation.

Match Made in Heaven

Mandamus is classified as a single blended rum, which means that it’s a blend of copper pot-distilled and Coffey-distilled rums that were made by the same distillery. (It’s a traditional style used by several rum makers, combining the lighter, cleaner, and typically fruitier qualities of column-distilled spirit with their heavier, oilier, and generally more aromatic pot-distilled counterparts.) It was aged for 16 years at the Foursquare Distillery, which typically experiences 6–8% angels’ share annually due to the hot and humid climate in Barbados. It spent the first 10 years in American oak bourbon barrels before being transferred into port pipes, where it was finished for an additional 6 years. The final product was bottled at 57% ABV and, like many of the distillery’s other rums, it didn’t receive sugar, flavoring additives, colorants, or filtration.

Mandamus is the 29th release in the Exceptional Cask Selection (ECS) series, which is something of a pet project for Foursquare’s fourth-generation master distiller and blender Richard Seale. The distillery produces different styles of rum under multiple labels, including The Real McCoy, Doorly’s, R.L. Seale’s, and Probitas (which includes unaged Foursquare rum that’s blended with rum from Jamaica’s Hampden Estate Distillery). But its best and most unique barrels are set aside for ECS, with Seale often letting them age for a bit longer before blending and bottling. The series doesn’t have a set release schedule; new expressions are added only when Seale finds a batch of barrels that he deems worthy of bearing the ECS name.

The ECS series focuses entirely on the art of blending, with many featuring a combination of casks, while others represent blends from a single vintage. For the cask-focused releases, Seale typically starts with American oak bourbon barrels and adds a secondary vessel, with some of his most interesting options over the years including zinfandel, madeira, cognac, and black muscat. This is the third time he has used port pipes for an ECS release, following 2014’s Mark II: Port Cask Finish and 2020’s Mark XIV: Détente.

How Does It Taste?

Foursquare Exceptional Cask Selection Mark XXIX: Mandamus Single Blended Rum

ABV: 57%
SRP: $160
Availability: 4,800 bottles, online and at retailers nationwide

If you’re a fan of heavily sherried or ported scotches, then you’ll feel right at home with this rum. It’s darkly sweet and alluring on the nose, with black cherry, stewed fruits, marzipan, cinnamon sugar, plum, chocolate, and vanilla—getting even sweeter with a few drops of water. The palate is full and complex, bearing wine-soaked fruits, cherry pie, soft baking spices, molasses, overripe fruits, and pipe tobacco. Plum returns for an intense and seemingly eternal finish, joined by blackberry, marzipan, toasted coconut, and a kiss of oak. In a word, it’s excellent.