Distillerie Longueteau, located near the southeast coast of Basse-Terre, was founded in 1895 by Henri Longueteau. Like many distilleries from Guadeloupe and Martinique, Longueteau offers a range of unaged single plot rums. The two I have today, from plots nine and twelve, were both column distilled from Canne Rouge and bottled without aging at 55%. I was really impressed with their brut de colonne from 2017, so I’m excited to find out how these do!
Longueteau Sélection Parcellaire No. 9 (2018)
On the nose, I first get lots of minerals and grass. With time, there emerges some orange essence, olives, wet flour, and a little white pepper. It seems a little one-dimensional so far.
The palate has a little more going on than the nose. There’s more minerality and grass, but also sweet orange juice, pineapple rind, olives and olive brine, artificial vanilla flavoring, and sweet supermarket white bread like Wonder Bread.
This is a nice, perfectly serviceable agricole, but not a whole lot more for me. There isn’t anything to complain about necessarily, it just isn’t particularly interesting to me. It makes a lovely ti’ punch, which is probably how I’ll be drinking the rest of my bottle. (6/10)
Longueteau Sélection Parcellaire No. 12 (2019)
From the first whiff, I can tell these are going to be difficult to tell apart. I get mostly minerals and grass again, olives, black licorice, and maybe a faintly smoky note? That might be a stretch. I would say it is less citrusy and generally less lively than Parcellaire no. 9.
On the palate, the citrus note presents more as grapefruit than orange. It isn’t overtly floral, but it might have some flower stems. There’s also a mix of fresh grass and hay, olive, some vanilla icing, and tart green grapes.
My impression of this is virtually identical to that of Parcellaire no. 9 above, though I think I prefer no. 12 a smidge less. They’re both good, but neither can quite keep up with similar offerings from Bielle, Père Labat, or Bologne. Though I haven’t yet tried “le 62” from their core lineup, I wonder if it may actually be better than these. (6/10)