Diplomatico No2 Batch #10 Barbet Rum 750ml

Diplomático No.2 Barbet Rum comes from Venezuela's Diplomático distillery, founded in 1959 at the foot of the Andes near the town of La Miel. This bottling is part of the brand's Distillery Collection, a limited series created to spotlight the individual stills that go into Diplomático's better known blends, with each release named for the equipment used to produce it. No.2 takes its name from the Barbet column still, a design originally developed in France in the late nineteenth century and brought to the La Miel distillery in 1959.

The Barbet is a continuous column still built with two sets of bubbling-bell plates and its own condensers, a configuration that separates alcohol from other distillation compounds with particular precision. Diplomático distills sugarcane molasses through this still using a proprietary, non-commercial yeast strain cultivated at the distillery, then matures the resulting spirit for four years in American white oak barrels previously used for bourbon and whisky. The finished rum is bottled at 47% ABV.

The nose opens fruity, with green apple, honey, and ripe mango giving way to toasted and slightly charred oak and a touch of baking spice. On the palate the rum turns buttery and fruit-forward, layered with vanilla and dry citrus, before a long, warming finish carries the oak influence through to the end.