Bedford Park New Yarmouth 5 Year Jamaican Rum
Reviewer: Tashtego
Distillery: New Yarmouth
Origin: Clarendon Parish, Jamaica
Bottle Size: 700 ml
Bottle Count: 240
ABV: 69%
Distilled: 2019
Base Material: Molasses
Still: Pot still
Aging specs: Aged 5 years in a once-used bourbon barrel
Bottled: 2025
Nose: Leather, apricot, Jamaican esters, nutmeg
Palate: Stone fruit, citrus, funk, vanilla, lemon, blueberries, PEZ candy
Finish: Barrel, baking spices
Bedford Park is a Canadian independent bottler that recently got distribution in the States thanks to Raising Glasses. They bottled three different expressions of New Yarmouth, with this one being the youngest. This bottling is a single barrel of NY’s mid-range Hugh Murdoch mark with 500-700 gr/hLPA of esters. That puts it around the HLCF mark for Hampden (ever the ester benchmark), which is the mark they use for Rum Fire, 1753, and more. Aside from knowing the mark and the age, there’s not much else we’ll learn about this rum since the New Yarmouth distillery is, for reasons unknown, shrouded in secrecy. There exist no pictures of it online, no tales of tours or walkthroughs. It’s especially weird when you consider that both NY and Appleton are owned by Campari, and you can tour Appleton all you like. Suffice it to say New Yarmouth rums don’t hit the US market too often, so this was a fun one to get to taste.
On the nose there’s some leather that envelops the fruitier notes. It smells like a Jamaican rum for sure. I do sense some of that Hampden-y pineapple, but that’s muted. I get some spices like nutmeg that help make this a complex bouquet. At 69% you’d expect this to come in screaming, but it is a bit smoother than you’d think. But really there’s not much holding this rum back from being a high proof ester bomb. On the palate, Hampden fans will notice a familiar balance of funk and fruit, but this one relies less on grilled pineapple and more on apricots and peaches. It’s an enticing mix of varnish and fruit desserts, with some earthy notes that call to mind the tropics. At the end, there’s a lemon PEZ candy note that I really enjoy.
I like how the sweeter flavors have to swim through that tunnel of bold, Jamaican esters — like the fruit has to really work for it to reach the tongue. For fans of Jamaican rum, and Hampden in particular, this bottle offers the high ester experience that you want with some fun surprises. On the Taste scale, this gets a 4. For something with not a ton of age (and I imagine it was aged continentally, not at origin), it offers a lot of sophistication. On the Haste scale, I’ll also give it a 4. Unlike a lot of what we’ve reviewed here, this bottle is actually available (as of this writing) at Raising Glasses. For $100, this is comparable to other funky Jamaican rums like Hampden HLCF Classic, and being at 69% makes it a pretty good deal. We’ll get around to another New Yarmouth from Bedford Park at some point, but there’s a lot to like about this 5 year bottle.
Taste/Haste Scale: 4 / 4
