At Barrel-Aged-Thoughts the period of closure of Hampden was narrowed to 2002/2003 through 2009. The only known vintage in this period of closure was the 2007 C<>H, which got a lot of new releases recently. All of those bottlings were continentally aged.
As far as I know, Hampden didn’t do any aging on estate before 2009. I’m not even sure if they filled rum in wooden casks or if they just provided steel tanks to the brokers.
A few days ago we stumbled on the new Old Brother HJF from 2008 which is supposed to be tropically aged.
And there is another release which falls into the period of closure, that is the Rum Shark Hampden 2005
What do you think about these new vintages and how do they impact the known Hampden history? Have there been other “Test Batches” like the 2007 - and why haven’t we seen any until now? Have they actually been aging rum on the estate before 2009? Are those two bottlers mistaking and the rums are actually from another date?