There are tons of tiny distilleries all around Haiti, and their popularization is largely due to Luca Gargano, head of Habitation Velier, who released the Spirit of Haiti series, with Le Rocher being the fourth clairin in the series. The distillery is very rudimentary, with the fermentation featuring dunder and wild yeast, and the distillation is done in pot stills fueled by waste bagasse

Review

Smell: It’s grassy and spicy in a way that’s sort of unusual for a clairin. It’s like an agricole spiced with a rib rub. Brown sugar, chipotle peppers, cumin, smoked salt, and sharpie. Very earthy and a mix of sweet and savory.

Taste: It tastes much like it smells: smoky, grassy, and slightly bitter. There’s a sweet, savory, smoky pepperiness which is not fruity, like the bright and fruity flavor of some other clairins. It is instead more like savory stewed prunes and pears, with a slight industrial flavor that reminds me of the grunge in Worthy Park funk. It’s like a stew with vegetables, a few dark fruits, and a lot of seasoning. The finish is long with watermelon and green apple. It’s pretty different from Le Rocher, which is basically what I expected from a clairin: a little bit of agricole grassiness, a little bit of fruity flavor, and a lot of complexity.

Le Rocher is fantastic in a daiquiri. It’s almost like a smoked daiquiri, and balanced nicely between sweet, sour, and smoky barbecue notes that feel like they shouldn’t work together, but they do. This daiquiri reminds me of my grandma’s kompot, which she often makes from smoke-dried apricots.

Verdict 8/10

I think Le Rocher is quite different from, but equally as complex as Sajous. The flavor profile is not outright my favorite, as is the case with Jamaican funk, but it makes me keep coming back and pondering. I love a rum that makes me think, and keep coming back for another sip. 8/10