Review: Probitas Green Label Blended Rum

Richard Seale has had an outsized role in the rum resurgence of the last twenty years. His Foursquare distillery helped move the category into the super-premium space after a long exile in beach bars and frat houses. But well-aged sippers like Foursquare’s Exceptional Cask Selections weren’t the only rums behind this renaissance. The corresponding cocktail boom, and rebirth of Tiki culture more specifically, gave equal weight to well-made mixing rums.

Launched in 2018, Probitas was designed to meet the cocktailing moment. The blend of Foursquare’s pot- and column-distilled rums from Barbados with pot-distilled rums from Hampden Estate in Jamaica became a go-to white rum cocktail base, adding depth to lighter Caribbean classics. Now the Probitas line is growing with a new addition that looks to fill the darker rum needs of backbars everywhere.

Like the original, Probitas Green Label is a blend of pot- and column-distilled rums. Specifically, it merges unaged twin-column coffey still rum, unaged double-retort pot still rum, and two-year aged double-retort pot still rum from Foursquare Rum Distillery in Barbados with unaged double-retort pot still rum from Hampden Estate. The big distinction appears to be the 10% increase in alcohol content and, perhaps even more significant, the addition of caramel coloring. But this isn’t the sugary, artificial stuff you would find in lower quality rums. How could it be? Richard Seale has been at the vanguard of the additive-free rum movement. As such, he created his own caramel coloring in house by superheating sugar, leaving zero residual sweetness to influence the natural flavors of the blend. Let’s check it out.

Probitas Green Label Blended Rum Review

While classic Probitas is bright and fruity on the nose, this Green Label expression is almost brooding with dark, rich notes of blackstrap molasses, overcooked caramel, and bruleed sugar. As it opens, a little baked pineapple manages to show itself before retreating into more caramelized sugars and an ester-heavy funk that seems even more pronounced than in the classic, despite all those darker sugary notes. With even more time in the glass, things coalesce into dark butterscotch and banana pudding.

The palate is potent, unsurprisingly given the significant uptick in proof, but a smack of brown sugar and cola instantly cools the ethanol and complements undertones of table syrup, clove-studded orange, and candied pineapple. It’s mouthcoating and wonderfully rich, tiptoeing dangerously close to syrupy but never quite getting there. The midpalate is peppery with a pronounced chicory coffee note that adds tannins and grip before eroding into silkier notes of Demerara syrup, five spice, and candied orange peel on a generous, warming finish. Where classic Probitas is ideal for a daiquiri, this new Green Label is a go-to for bolder Tiki drinks or a rum Old Fashioned.

114 proof.

A- / $35

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