Clairin Casimir

From Faubert Casimir in Barradères, a remote village on Haiti's southern peninsula reachable more easily by boat than by road, which tells you something about how this rum is made. The cane is Hatienne and Madame Meuze, varieties largely abandoned elsewhere, grown without irrigation or chemical fertilizer and harvested by hand. What sets Casimir apart is the fermentation. Rather than working from fresh juice alone, the cane is reduced to syrup, then fermented slowly with wild yeast and a handful of local plants tossed into the vat, a practice passed down rather than engineered. That long, herb-inflected ferment is where the rum's character is built, well before it ever reaches the small direct-fire pot still. It emerges unaged, unfiltered, and undiluted at roughly 54%. The result is the most extroverted of the Clairin family. Enormous esters of overripe pineapple, glue, and warm banana peel, braided with bitter herbs, anise, and a mineral, almost chalky spine. There's a floral top note that keeps surfacing between the funk, and a long finish that turns dry and vegetal. It is not subtle and doesn't pretend to be.