‶I’m from Bermuda,″ Malcolm Gosling explained to the dinner audience at Greenleaf, a seasonally inspired farm-to-table restaurant in Milford, N.H. ‶So that explains why I’m wearing shorts in November in New Hampshire.″ The Sunday night crowd tittered.

Owned by executive chef Chris Viaud, Greenleaf (54 Nashua St., Milford, N.H.; 603-213-5447; greenleafmilford.com) usually opens for dinner Wednesday through Saturday. But this Sunday night special was a reunion of Viaud and three of his former fellow Top Chef Season 18 contestants.

Sponsored by Goslings Rum, the dinner benefited the food pantry and soup kitchen in nearby Nashua, N.H. Shown above holding the microphone, Viaud was joined by (from left) Jamie Tran of Black Sheep in Las Vegas, Nelson German of alaMar Kitchen & Bar in Oakland, and Byron Gomez of 7908 in Aspen.

The big fellow in the orange shorts at the far left may look like actor Chris Noth from his Sex in the City days, but that’s Gosling. He’s perfectly cast as the brand representative for his family’s rums, which constitute Bermuda’s number one export. Contrary to what we expected, Goslings doesn’t distill a drop of it. It’s illegal to make spirits in the British Overseas Territory.

Instead, Goslings purchases raw rum distillate from around the Caribbean and transforms those fire waters into a polished line of smooth aged rums. The family has been aging and blending rum since 1806, so they’ve had a lot of practice.

OF SEALING WAX AND MARINE MAMMALS

The signature product is Goslings Black Seal Rum, a blend of aged rums first developed by the company around 1850 and called simply ‶Old Rum.″ It was sold in barrels until World War I, when the company commandeered used champagne bottles from the British officer’s mess. (Being a small island in the middle of the Atlantic, Bermuda doesn’t have a lot of glass….) They sealed the bottles with black sealing wax, and customers soon began to ask for the rum ‶with the black seal.″ Hence the label with a seal balancing a ball.

Goslings ages its rums in re-charred American bourbon barrels—most of them from Buffalo Trace, with a few from Heaven Hill. The barrels impart a distinctive flavor to the rums, including an intense vanilla from some barrels. All Black Seal Rum is blended to achieve a consistent flavor from bottle to bottle, year to year. The Family Reserve Old Rum is made of the same blend as the flagship Black Seal, but further aged in charred oak at least 16 years. It’s hand-bottled just once a year and each bottle is signed and numbered.

Real connoisseurs should seek out the Goslings Papa Seal Single Barrel Rum. It’s a different blend of 10-21-year-old rums married in oak for an additional two years. At 83 proof, it’s slightly more alcholoic than the other Goslings rums, which are 80 proof. Each barrel, naturally, has its own characteristic expressions of spice, leather, caramel, and molasses with a touch of banana overtones. Caribbean Journal picked it as the best aged rum in the world, and we can see why. Close your eyes, take a sip, and it’s easy to imagine the salt breeze off the ocean wafting around the barrels in the open limestone aging warehouses.

Malcolm Gosling prefers his rum neat after dinner with an ice cube. But all the rums pair well with food—the subject of our next post.