Review: South Hollow Spirits Twenty Boat Cape Cod Spiced Rum
Review: South Hollow Spirits Twenty Boat Cape Cod Spiced Rum
Massachusetts-based craft producer South Hollow Spirits has a heavy focus on rum, one of the traditional spirits of New England in the pre-Prohibition era. The Twenty Boat brand comprises both an amber and a spiced rum, the latter of which we review below.
Made from organic molasses and sugar cane juice sourced from Florida and Louisiana, the rum is double-distilled and steeped for three weeks with a mixture of locally sourced spices: cardamom, vanilla bean, cinnamon, rose hip, anise, lemon peel, orange peel, allspice, nutmeg and chai,
That’s a lot of botanicals, and it makes things curious from the get-go, starting with the color. Twenty Boat Spiced Rum is an engaging shade of dark amber, with a rosy pink hue. On the nose, the rum comes across as youthful, with some raw alcohol character and a bit of astringency dulling notes of molasses, flamed orange peel, cloves, and that unique, cardamom-scented chai. Give this rum some time in glass, and those youthful notes eventually give way to the spicier elements.
On the flipside, the palate is a bit winey and Port-like, heavier with juicy orange notes than the nose would indicate, with hefty cloves, almond, licorice, and allspice notes hitting hard soon after. The finish is sweet and almost candylike, with cinnamon-heavy notes of Red Hots swirled into a somewhat saccharine, syrupy base.
All told this is a highly credible spiced rum — particularly if the higher alcohol content is to your liking — but it feels a bit busy at times. Give it plenty of air to let things marry a bit and for its initially raw characteristics to blow off — never have I encountered a spirit that improved so much from having a full glass left open to the air overnight.
95 proof.
A- / $42 / southhollowspirits.com
South Hollow Spirits Twenty Boat Cape Cod Spiced Rum
$42
