Rum Style

Single Blended Rum refers to a rum made from both pot-still and column-still distillate, both distilled at the same distillery and blended there. Foursquare is considered a prime example. The term comes from a classification developed by Italian Luca Gargano of the company Velier together with Richard Seale.

This classification doesn't ask about color or age, but about the still. Pure Single Rum consists entirely of pot-still distillate from one distillery. Single Blended Rum mixes pot and column distillate from the same distillery. Traditional Rum comes from a classic column or Coffey still. A plain "Rum" comes from a modern multi-column still. There are also Agricole variants.

The classification is a private one, not a legal standard. It's meant to tell buyers what's in the bottle without them having to decode marketing copy. It appears on labels only where a producer voluntarily adopts it. It helps compare bottles from different distilleries, since it describes the process rather than the marketing tone.

How does the Barbados style compare to its neighbors in taste? Softer and rounder than a Jamaican rum with heavy ester character, but with more body and oak than a filtered Spanish-style rum. Typical notes include vanilla, toffee, dried fruit and baking spice. The pot-still portion brings the spice, the column the elegance.

Here too: style is not a rule of origin. Every distillery on the island does it a little differently, and since there's no PGI for Barbados, the name "Single Blended" alone isn't proof of quality, only of the distillation method.