93 points,"This is a great rum. Sweet wine finishes marry well with rum adding complexity, along with layers of dried fruit and sweetness that make for a sophisticated, nuanced, sipping rum. It's a credit to both the distillery and its long history and to Trudiann Branker; its young, talented Master Blender."- Forbes As the world's oldest rum distillery, Mount Gay have earned the right to reinvent rum. And that's exactly what they're doing with their Master Blender Collection. The Port Cask Expression is the third small-batch release in the series. It was created by the distillery's first female Master Blender, Trudiann Branker, and it's the first time Mount Gay has used Tawny Port casks in its illustrious history. The rum is a blend of copper pot still components aged for 14 years in American oak casks and finished in Tawny Port casks for a year, and column still components matured in Tawny Port casks for 5 years. Only 6,570 bottles were made and it's fast becoming a collector's item. The rum has lapped up all those sweet wine flavours. Mount Gay's classic banana and pineapple flavours have been layered with cherry, dried fruit, prune, fig, raisin, marmalade, mince pie, crème brûlée, Christmas spices and almond marzipan. The result is a monumental and festive rum that is not to be missed. The distillery was founded on 20th February 1703, over a century before the first Old Fashioned was mixed, and it has been drawing water from the same coral limestone-filtered well to make their rum ever since. Barbadian sugar cane produces some of the world's richest and most aromatic molasses, which is what gives Mount Gay its gravitas. The rum is filled into white oak Kentucky whiskey barrels and the rest is left to the erratic tropical Caribbean climate, which in one single year could mature a rum for the equivalent of three years or six months, who knows? Maybe that's why the Barbadians are so relaxed, just enjoy life and let the rum do its own thing.£25.71 per 100.00ml