Something we’ve been quietly working on for some weeks is live right now: Spirit Academy gave us an exclusive window on one of the most anticipated Velier releases: The brand new Appleton Estate 1999 Hearts Collection 2025 Edition. 
Why this matters: in the latest RumX user survey, “access to sought-after bottlings directly through RumX” was one of the most requested features. This release is our first experiment to make exactly that happen. A real headstart for the community before the bottle goes public on Spirit Academy next Monday.
Why this specific bottle, and not another one? Spirit Academy and RumX picked it together, because no other release fits the RumX-Pre-Sale idea this cleanly. Across the eight Hearts Collection vintages tracked on RumX, you’ve logged 979 ratings and 331 written tasting notes in 10 languages. That makes this the most documented cask-strength Appleton lineage anywhere. Community median: Very good 8.7 / 10. It’s literally your data that made this pre-sale possible.
And this isn’t just any bottle. It’s the same spirit as the legendary 2020 Hearts Collection 1999 (RX7801), but aged five more years in the Jamaican tropics. 26 years full tropical. 100% pot still. Seven casks (400256–400262). 1.135 g/100 LAA congeners. The chance to taste the exact same distillate at two different stages of its life is something collectors dream about, and almost never get.
And our own data is pretty optimistic about what those extra five years will do: every Hearts release in the 25+ year bracket outscores its younger siblings, the 1994 (26 yrs) sits at a community mean of 8.79, the 1998 (25 yrs) at 8.90, both ahead of the 21-year-old 1999 parent. Five more tropical years have, historically, lifted this distillate — not exhausted it.
What you’ve already told us about the 1999 parent (RX7801, 116 ratings, 45 tasting notes):
“A rum that brings you to cloud 152 and never lets you down again. Super rich nose with fruit and oak. Spicy, warm, herbal and medicinal. Super long finish — not your typical Jamaican funky rum.” — Kevin Sorensen, 9.0/10
“Pineapple, banana, herbaceous molasses, roasted wood, leather and caramel… on aeration, orange peel, anise, vanilla, baking spices, prunes, flowery and grassy tones.” — LukaŽiga, 8.7/10
RumX flavor fingerprint on the parent: tropical fruit, pineapple, orange peel, ester, herbal, chocolate, ginger, roasted wood. Not a clean Jamaican funk bomb, a dense, herbal, semi-medicinal Appleton outlier.
Only 1,406 bottles worldwide, the second-smallest Hearts run ever (only the 1984 was smaller). Out of those, we got 30 bottles exclusively for the RumX community pre sale, priced at €340, max. 1 per RumX member. When these are gone, they’re gone, the rest of the world has to wait until Monday.
If this first experiment works, the next step is to figure out, together with you, what the distribution formula for future RumX pre-sales should look like. One idea we’d like to put on the table: prioritising frequent splitters and highly engaged community members for the next allocation. But that’s a conversation we want to have openly here in the forum, not decide in a back room.
So: if you’ve been asking for more drops like this, this is the moment to show it works. And once your bottle arrives, please log your ratings and notes on RumX so the new edition becomes as data-rich as its parent. Your notes are what unlocked this pre-sale in the first place. 
Cheers,
Oliver
gut das ich damit nicht alleine war. Bin gespannt wie der neue wird! 94er NY wäre ja geschmacklich schon eher mein Beuteschema 
