Parhelia Spirits Jamaica New Yarmouth Winston Kennedy
Reviewer: Pickwick (with notes from Tashtego)
Distillery: New Yarmouth
Origin: Clarendon Parish, Jamaica
Bottle Size: 700ml
Bottle Count: 252
ABV: 69.4%
Distilled: August 2019
Base Material: Molasses and cane juice
Still: Pot
Aging specs: Rested in a stainless steel tank for almost 3.5 years; casked in first-fill ex-bourbon in February 2023 and aged continentally for over 2 years
Bottled: Not stated; decanted from cask in October 2025
Nose: Pineapple, strawberry, ketchup, crispy brine, spiced apple
Palate: Fresh apple, jasmine, honey, spiced pineapple, crispy brine, cotton candy, yogurt
Finish: Solvents, brine, nutmeg, ripe peach
Parhelia Spirits, a new American independent bottler started in 2025, states on their website that their goal is “to bring a greater diversity of alcohol products to the United States than are available to the U.S. public.” Although one could perhaps argue that they’ve been pipped a bit by the recent importation of Bedford Park releases which included three New Yarmouth bottlings, getting two distinct bottlings from one of the world’s most secretive distilleries is a decent coup for a new IB looking to establish itself. And even Bedford Park didn’t go this far: we’re talking a lightly aged, borderline hazmat release of NYE/WK, a mark that is up there with Hampden’s DOK and Long Pond’s TECC at the absolute top of the ester range in Jamaica (per Matt Pietrek’s highly useful Jamaican Rum Marques Roundup).
The rum in this bottle was rested in a stainless steel tank for an astonishing three-plus years before even going into a cask, but its power is assuredly undiminished. The briny esters that I associate with New Yarmouth are all over both the nose and palate here; I have not been able to come up with a descriptive adjective I like more than “crispy” to characterize them. I’m not sure I could explain what that means, but to paraphrase Potter Stewart, I know it when I taste it. There’s a lot of fruit hanging around this bottling as well, notably pineapple and strawberry, along with some more random sweet and savory notes (there was a distinct acidity on the nose which suggested ketchup, and a cotton candy note that jumped out at me on my second pass). Some hints of lactic acid suggest a creamy yogurt.
Interestingly, this bottling is reported to have been produced from a mixture of molasses and cane juice. I’m not sure how normal that is for New Yarmouth - I suspect not very! - but my guess would be the cane juice is the component responsible for all the apple that pops up in this rum. The initial sips tasted like pure fresh apple juice to me, a common enough note in many low-complexity rums but not at all something I was expecting to pull out of a high-ester Jamaican. Gradually the raw power of the esters wins out, but this rum still puts the palate through an absolute workout. Not surprisingly with so many flavors, the finish lasts a long time, starting off with some of the more savory notes but after some time leaving the lingering taste of ripe peach.
As you can no doubt guess, the proprietors of a website called “Ester Island” were pretty into this rum, but it falls a notch below our highest rating with a Taste score of 4. It’s good and quite complex, but the combination of the young age and the high proof do increase the challenge and thus decrease the pure pleasure a bit. (I really never add water to rum but it is tempting to throw a few milliliters into this one and see how it might do down at 60%.) For Haste, we’ll call it a 3. This currently retails for $125; considering the proof and the relative rarity of high-ester New Yarmouth, I don’t think that’s a bad price, but it’s high enough that I can’t say you need to be in the car the second you’ve finished reading this. Still, if you’re big into high-ester funk this is definitely worth a pickup. The addition of the cane juice adds some character that you won’t find in most other rums of this sort.
Taste/Haste Scale: 4 / 3
