Introduces itself as Ron Zacapa Centenario. 23 year old rum, from Guatemala. Dark as molasses. Heavy, sweet, smooth.
DAMN this stuff is good. It’s totallly rum; if you don’t embrace rum at all, it might still change your mind but the real appeal is going to be for folks who have enjoyed good añejo rums for smooth sipping. Folks, there’s a new captain and the ship is going places it hasn’t been before.
I’ve always enjoyed a decent rum, e.g, a bottle of Bacardi Añejo, but it never stacked up against really really good tequilas, bourbons, and scotches. This rum comes to that table and sticks its elbows out and says “make room”.
(Disclaimer: It is of course entirely possible that serious rum drinkers know of great rums and would laugh at both Ron Bacardi Añejo as a baseline and at Ron Zapaca as the new sheriff in town. If such folk are on the board, instruct as you disparage, please)
Damn, AHunter3, just your description is making my mouth water.
Rum is the only hard liquor I’ve ever been able to take straight. I recently moved up from Bacardi to Myers. Dark rum *is * more flavorful.
I recently got 2 bottles of good Australian OP rum really cheap at a bottle shop that was closing down. I don’t usually drink rum and just got it as a mixer but someone told me to try it straight with ice and it was great. I decided to buy my father a swish bottle of rum rather than Scotch for Christmas and found this Forbes article which lauds the rum in the OP. All I could find locally was the Mount Gay. I will have to see what it is like.
My favorite rum in general is Mayers’s dark. But I’ve picked up a couple bottles of something called Flor de Canya in Nicaragua before that was mighty fine stuff.
If you are serious about enjoying rum, I suggest you give Venezuelan rums a try. Pampero Aniversario is a good place to start (most people feel no need to keep trying, it is that good). Ocumare is another good house with several different products. Neither should be terribly hard to find in NY and they are not too expensive.
There is a new distillery here in Tennessee that is making rum, very very nice rum that’s a bit different from the Carribean and Central American rums.