After the fruit comes caramel and a good amount of vanilla. Things settle down a bit more after another minute, and now I can detect a good dose of oak followed closely by ripe melon, kiwi and figs. The nose continues to be quite hot, which has me re-checking the ABV on the label. When I return to continue my nosing, the dominant characteristic is now reminiscent of model airplane glue. The nose is a bit jarring in its astringency, so I let the glass rest for a minute. A swirl in the glass produces a thin ring from which droplets slowly develop. In the glass, the rum is a deep mahogany. Metal cap at left, wood-topped synthetic cork at right I would suggest using a stronger adhesive and/or roughing up the cap interior prior to application in future runs. I find this pretty unacceptable for a $65 rum. Fortunately for me, I didn’t drop the bottle in the process. On this bottle, the metal cap (while lovely) almost immediately pulled away from the wood. The closure is a synthetic cork topped with wood and an engraved metal cap. There is an obvious nod to quality with thicker glass (especially at the base) and some really beautiful raised glass design features. The Facundo bottles are completely different than the other bottles in the Bacardi line, and the Eximo bottle is no exception. Today we’ll taste the Eximo, which is bottled at 40% ABV and retails for $65. There are four expressions in the Facundo line: Neo (white), Eximo (10-year), Exquisito (7-23 year blend), and Paraiso (17-32 year blend). As with NEO, Eximo helps solidify the emerging premium rum categories with an entry well worth every penny of its $60 price.Coming from the house of Bacardi is a new line of premium rums bearing the given name of the company’s founder: Facundo. Eximo takes everything that Bacardi has accomplished with their 8 year rum and cranks it up to 11 (excuse the pun) in one of the most enchanting and alluring expressions of this style of rum we’ve had. The finish for the Facundo Eximo Rum is fantastic, slightly dry and incredibly long with bitter dark chocolate, vanilla, raisin, oak, and tobacco, flavors that continue to dance on the palate long after Eximo has come and gone. The midpalate is a sheer love letter to oak and presents a strong oak flavor in one of the most pleasant and satisfying ways we’ve seen. The midpalate of Eximo is all about oak, with the sweet vanilla and caramel notes from the entry combining with tobacco and slightly bitter dried raisin, interweaving with the oak notes with tight and impeccable integration. The journey isn’t nearly as dramatic with Eximo, but the shift is quite pleasant. As with NEO, Eximo goes on a journey from sweet and round towards dry. What’s interesting about Eximo is that it presents more oak than spice, with flavors that can be described more as deep oak, dry oak, or smokey oak than oak spice. Although the nose suggests bourbon, the entry proclaims RUM with vanilla, caramel, and toffee right there with the oak. The nose on Eximo also has a wonderful old bourbon-like quality to it, reminiscent of the character we’ve seen in 20 year old bourbons. The aromas in Eximo’s nose integrate amazingly with the sweeter notes layered in between varying levels of oak. The nose on Eximo is strong oak backed by vanilla, caramel, bananas foster, and bitter dark chocolate. In the mix are a few rums older than 10 years old (and were 1-2 years at the time of original blending), giving Eximo a total age range of 10 – 12 years. Eximo is a 10 year old rum which was blended before it was put into the barrel 10 years ago. It takes a tremendous amount of skill to do this blending BEFORE a rum is aged, and that’s what Bacardi has done with Eximo. That product must state the youngest rum in the mix, but often there are small amounts of older rums to help add dimensionality and depth. Blending after aging gives a blender a great amount of ability to balance and shape the character of a rum. Facundo Eximo Rum (40% ABV / 80 proof, $60) – a lot of aged rums are a result of blending a number of different rums together after aging into a single, unified product.
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