Upcoming US Rum Releases of Interest — March 2024

Better late than never, right? Apologies for how late this is. The April report will follow soon after this in a separate post.

Here’s a new list of upcoming rum releases for the US market compiled from TTB label certifications approved in February 2024. These are only label approvals recorded at the US TTB, so none of these are likely to be available yet and it’s anyone’s guess when they might appear in stores.

This doesn’t include every rum label approval, I’ve tried to triage the approvals to the brands that people would recognize, while also including other labels that might be interesting and excluding spiced/flavored products and most cachacas.

The TTB approved 68 rum labels in total this month, 26 are covered here (33 if you count the re-approved remaining Hampden Estate 8 Marks Set labels).

This month’s highlights include the (hopefully final) labels for the Hampden Estate Aged 8 Marks Set, lots of great rums from Raising Glasses, more single casks from Alambique Serrano, and several single barrel picks for online shop Seelbach’s.

You can find the February 2024 release of this report here.

Alambique Serrano

Single Cask 19 Zona Verde, Approved 6 February 2024.

Single Cask 20 New French Oak, Approved 12 February 2024.

Caldas

Viejo de Caldas Roble Blanco, Approved 23 February 2024.

Gran Reserva Especial, Approved 23 February 2024.

Carta de Oro, Approved 23 February 2024.

Juan de la Cruz, Approved 23 February 2024.

Anejo 3 Anos, Approved 23 February 2024.

Denizen

Vatted Dark, Approved 29 February 2024.

El Dorado

2015 8 YO Seelbach’s Select Barrel, Approved 26 February 2024.

2014 9 YO Seelbach’s Select Barrel, Approved 23 February 2024.

Hampden Estate

HLCF Aged 1 Year, Approved 29 February 2024.

This was approved along with the other seven marks for the (hopefully) soon to be released one year old 8 Marks set. The original approval for the labels in this set didn’t include HLCF, so I’m including it in the report.

The other labels in the aged set were also approved this month with slight changes. I’m not going to repost them here, but the main difference is that the marque abbreviations aren’t defined anywhere on these new labels as they were on the original ones. This is actually why the label approvals were held up in the first place. HLCF stands for Hampden Light Continental Flavoured, and when the TTB saw the word “light” on the label it triggered a request for more information. “Light” on a beverage alcohol label has a specific meaning that implies a nutritional claim. The TTB needed a statement of nutritional analysis included on the label as well that defined serving size, calories, carbs, protein, fat, etc. as well as a lab analysis to back it up.

You might also note that they previously approved the LROK label (Light Rum Owen Kelly) without any nutritional analysis request. The TTB works in mysterious ways, and sometimes what’s approved and not approved depends on which TTB employee is chosen to review a label approval request. Based on these new approvals, it looks like La Maison & Velier chose the easiest option and is leaving off the full marque names.

Kuleana Rum Works

Monarch Blend, Approved 23 January 2024.

This was approved in January but didn’t come up in label searches when I did the February report. The TTB works in mysterious ways…

Oxbow Rum Distillery

False River Small Batch Dark Rum, approved 9 February 2024.

Raising Glasses

King Kai 17 YO Guyana ELWA, Approved 2 February 2024.

Kyrie Cane Juice Rum from Rummieclub, Approved 2 February 2024.

I think this is probably the first time rum from Dutch distiller Rummieclub has been released in the US market. Sadly they’ve recently closed their distillery so there won’t be much more after this.