Hampden Estate C<>H 2021 Single Barrel (Astor Exclusive)

Reviewers: Pickwick and Tashtego

Distillery: Hampden Estate
Origin: Trelawny Parish, Jamaica
Bottle Size: 700 ml
Bottle Count: 285
ABV: 65.4%
Distilled: 2021
Base Material: Molasses
Still: Double-retort pot still
Aging specs: Aged at origin in an ex-bourbon cask for 4 years
Bottled: 2025

Nose: Grilled pineapple, lemon, glue, diesel, spun sugar, honeysuckle, crispy brine
Palate: Pineapple, crispy brine, green herbs, burnt marshmallow, glue, pomelo, petrichor
Finish: Mint, eucalyptus

It was never going to take long to get to a Hampden Estate bottling; this site is called “Ester Island” for a reason. Between the two of us, we have somewhere around 40-45 unique bottlings of Hampden, and that’s only counting the 8 Marks as a single bottling. We love Hampden, and we love high-ester Hampden in particular. Unfortunately, that does mean that in some ways it’s very challenging to evaluate Hampden rums from an objective standpoint.

The new C<>H 2021 bottling released as an exclusive select pick from New York’s Astor Wines & Spirits was, by our usual standards, a must-buy. Hampden’s second-highest ester mark, aged four years at origin? Can only be great, surely. And Astor sold the heck out of this rum: on their website listing for it, they proudly state that “we’ve discovered this cask at its absolute apex” and “it is one of the most profound and intensely flavorful spirits you will ever taste.”

It is therefore with slightly heavy hearts that our Hampden fanboy palates found this one to be merely excellent. Let’s not undersell it here: this is great rum, highly characteristic of the Hampden style with bursts of pineapple, citrus, and some of the industrial notes you get at the higher ester levels. There are also some interesting notes we don’t always pull out of Hampden; the nose includes a distinct sweet florality that reminded us of honeysuckle, and the palate featured a balance of barrel sweetness and an ashy note that we ultimately characterized as “burnt marshmallow.” (Imagine your campfire marshmallow catches on fire, and you pull it out almost completely black, but there’s still some deep sugary sweetness in the center. That’s the note.) As with most Hampdens, even with a single mark in the barrel the tasting notes ebbed and flowed during our tasting, as we bounced various flavor identifications off each other.

In the end, however, by Hampden standards this did not quite the hit the full heights for us. Astor calls this the “absolute apex” but we found ourselves curious what another year or two in the barrel might have done for it - there’s a real rawness remaining on the spirit here that can be challenging, especially in the presence of some of the more industrial esters. And at 130.8 proof, it’s a puncher in more ways than one; just nosing the rum was difficult at times due to the way it singed the nostrils even after more than 30 minutes in the glass, and between that heat and the raw edge this is hardly Hampden’s easiest-drinking rum.

The final challenge is the price point; Astor currently has it retailing for $200 (okay, be fair: $199.96). We were able to get it during their pre-sale when it was a bit cheaper, but even so: the Raising Glasses Papilio from earlier this year sold for $96 for a 500ml bottle, and while that’s sold out now and was hard to come by even when first released, it’s better value by volume, just as good, and shockingly easier to drink despite a higher ABV! (We may need to put up a separate review for that one soon, as we dip into our vast backlog of bottles owned to beef up the content around here.) Ultimately, then, despite the fact that our actions indicated this bottling was a 4 on the Haste scale, since we went to decent lengths to obtain it (Astor doesn’t ship to our home state, requiring it to be shipped to relatives in another state and then hauled back), we couldn’t rate it higher than a 3 in terms of an actual recommendation. If you’re in New York and you’re a big Hampden fan, or if you like high-ester rum but don’t own a lot of it and are looking to add to your collection, this is great rum that’s worth owning. We’re not sorry to have it. But next to some of the peak Hampden bottles we already own, it’s not as perfect as we might have hoped.

Taste/Haste Scale: 4 / 3