Depaz XO Grande Reserve

Depaz

Origin

Martinique

Type

Sugar Cane Juice Rum

Barrel

Bourbon

Age

No Age Statement

Alcohol

45°

Value

70 points

About the product

The Depaz Grande Réserve XO is a rich rum. It is blended from rums aged for an average of between eight and 10 years in oak barrels. This gives it exceptional depth and complexity and makes it very suitable as an end to a banquet or as an accompaniment to a cigar or fresh coffee. You can also pair it with a dessert in which roasted pineapple plays the starring role, or with a spicy chutney of apricot and chilli.

The nose offers you a nice spiciness. Chocolate, roses and liquorice are front and centre in the aromas, but give way to plums, vanilla and soft oak notes. Those soft oak notes continue on the palate. The vanilla is also definitely present, but in a very refined and balanced way. This rum is floral and fruity, but at the same time it offers you a sense of luxury with every sip.

It is not for nothing that it has already won several awards, most recently at the Spirits Business 2023 competition, where it received rave reviews.

About the brand

Depaz Distillery is one of the smallest rum distilleries in Martinique. You will find it in a green oasis at the foot of Mont Pelée. At Depaz, rum is still made as it was in the past, with an old steam engine. At the heart of the distillery, this machine produces the energy needed to power the machines that grind the sugar cane and the stills themselves.

The start of Depaz's story was in 1651, in a then farm on the La Montagne estate. which was founded by Jacques Duparquet, the island's governor. It originally grew tobacco and raised cattle, but soon switched to planting sugar cane. A distillery also followed. Many families were employed here, including Victor Depaz's. As the distillery grew, the town of Saint Pierre also grew to become the largest rum port in the world, earning it the nickname ‘The Little Paris of the Antilles’.

That growth was abruptly ended on 8 May 1902 by a massive eruption of Mont Pelée, which wiped the entire town off the map. Victor Depaz was studying in Bordeaux at the time. His entire family was killed in that eruption, and all possessions were destroyed. Victor returned and 15 years later, on 8 May 1917, he started a new distillery and sugar cane plantation on the flanks of Mont Pelée. There he also built a copy of the Périnelle, his childhood home, which would soon be known as Depaz Castle. There he lived from 1922 with his 11 children, some of whom would later also take over the distillery.