Clairin Communal Vaval Ansyen 24 Mois
Clairin · Distillerie Arawaks (Fritz Vaval)
Clairin Vaval represents Haitian terroir at its most uncompromising. Fritz Vaval's small distillery in Léogâne uses native yeast fermentation and hand-harvested cane to produce a spirit that tastes like nowhere else on earth. The 24-month aging adds refinement without domesticating the wildness. This is rum for people who want their spirits to carry a passport.
Kit Aromas
Nose
Wild sugarcane funk announces itself immediately — green banana, damp earth, and a sharp grassy quality. Behind that, there's a developing sweetness: dried tropical fruits, a hint of coconut, and a faint citrus brightness.
Palate
The texture is muscular and oily, with agricole-style grassiness layered over tropical fruit and a savory mineral quality. Two years in oak have added vanilla and a gentle toffee sweetness without taming the wild spirit. A pronounced earthy note — wet laterite soil — anchors the midpalate.
Finish
Long, funky, and expressive, with lingering banana, oak tannins, and an herbaceous echo.
- Base Ingredient
- Fresh sugarcane juice (native varietals)
- Distillation
- Single distillation on small copper column still
- Country
- Léogâne, Haiti
Food Pairing
Charred ripe plantains dusted with chili flakes and squeezed with fresh lime, bridging the clairin's tropical fruit character and earthy, funky undertones.
Fritz Vaval tends his own sugarcane fields in the coastal plain of Léogâne, Haiti, fermenting with ambient yeasts and distilling on a small copper column still, producing clairin that carries the unmistakable stamp of its volcanic Caribbean terroir.
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