Appleton Estate Joy Anniversary Blend

Campari UK has unveiled a 25-year-old Appleton Estate Jamaican rum to celebrate Joy Spence’s 20th anniversary as the premium brand’s master blender.

Set to roll out in March with an rsp of £225 (70cl), the limited-edition Appleton Estate Joy Anniversary Blend combines rum marques aged for at least 25 years, one of which was laid in 1981. The resulting 45% abv liquid’s bouquet opens with delicate orange peel intertwined with ginger and spice, and finishes with warm vanilla, butterscotch, coffee, and layers of almond and toasted oak. The palate is ‘exceptionally smooth with an elegant finish of brown sugar’.

Its production marks Spence’s 1997 appointment to her role, 16 years after she joined Appleton Estate – becoming the world’s first woman to be a master blender, according to the brand.

Only 1,200 bottles of anniversary blend will be available in the UK. It was created to be “the rum I’d like to sip while watching the colours of my garden change in the warm glow of the Jamaican sunset,” said Spence, who hoped the coppery gold tipple would “become a cornerstone of my legacy”.