Reviews

Baie des Trésors Flowers of the Wind is a unique, high-proof rhum agricole distilled at Saint James using cane grown on arid parcels at Le Galion. The flavor profile is a mix of classic grassy, apple notes with butterscotch, spice, and fresh oak.

Baie des Tresors’ Fruit of the Rains is a complex, grassy, and at times creamy expression that’s worth trying for any Agricole lover.

La Favorite’s Vieux expression has plenty of flavor and personality for it’s 42% ABV.

Clement VSOP is a quality aged cane juice agricole that is more approachable than it is complex.

Rhum J.M’s 4-year-old VSOP is a deeply flavorful, oak-forward aged rhum agricole that maintains the fresh fruitiness of its cane juice origins. With notes of oak, vanilla, grape, and a peppery, gingery finish, it offers quite a bit of depth for its age and ABV.

Neisson’s “Vieux Par Neisson” is a sophisticated, aged rhum agricole that presents an inviting profile with prominent notes of oak, butterscotch, and a mix of deep sugars and fruit, particularly apple and cherry. While it excels as a neat sipper it’s a bit wasted mixed into a drink.

Neisson Reserve Speciale is a four year old rhum agricole from Martinique that’s solid, but a bit low-key.

This one year old rhum agricole from Neisson on Martinique has plenty of apple, honey, and brandy notes, and is a mixing powerhouse.

Rhum J.M V.O. is a premium aged rhum agricole that balances complexity with a clean profile, featuring notes of apple, maple syrup, smoke, and baking spices. While enjoyable neat, it shines in cocktails, making it an excellent entry point for those new to agricole rum.

While historically significant, Saint James Rhum Paille, bottled at 40% ABV, is a simple and light rum with honey, apple, and grassy notes. It performs better in cocktails than neat and is somewhat underwhelming as a representation of the brand.

This 12 year old Port Cask finish from Worthy Park in Jamaica is clearly a good rum, but how does it stack up as a work of cask finish auteurship?

Rhum J.M Terroir Volcanique is a three-year-old rhum agricole that highlights the distillery’s terroir and cooperage program. While tasty and interesting, it’s particularly notable for representing Rhum J.M’s innovative approach to rum-making, focusing on terroir and cask charring, and delivering quality at an accessible price point.

This one year old rhum agricole from La Mauny made us say “go on girl, give us nothing”.

This lightly aged rhum agricole from Rhum J.M in Martinique is a clean tasting workhorse that performs better than many more premium positioned rums.

This long aged installment in the Appleton Hearts series is deep, fruity, and flavorful, but avoids being over oaked even after 29 years in a cask.

This member of Rhum J.M’s L’Atelier des Rhums is a pretty classic expression of agricole fruity-herbaceousness, but probably the least successful of the line’s three rums.

This 3 year old rhum agricole from La Mauny in Martinique is a straightforward and approachable expression of its category.

This 20 year old installment in the Appleton Estate Hearts line knows who it is with plenty of flavorful, aged fruity funk.

This non-alcoholic rum from Bare Zero brings an interesting funkiness to the NA light rum format, but is more successful as a mixer than a spirit to sip neat.

This lower-ester Hampden is an tasty installment in the Habitation Velier series. While it’s tame by Hampden standards there’s still plenty of fruity-spicy flavor from nose to finish.

Dark & Spicy is a rum-inspired non-alcoholic spirit from Caleño that’s tasty, but fails to live up to its name.

Light and Zesty is a non-alcoholic rum-inspired spirit with a fresh, fruity nose and palate and a light finish.

This non-alcoholic rum from Philters has a spice-forward profile and works both served neat and mixed.

The non-alcoholic rum from Espadafor is an absolute acid bomb.

This non-alcoholic rum from Arkay is full of fire but lacking in flavor.

This non-alcoholic rum from Clean Co avoids the worst of the common NA pitfalls, but fails to stand out or taste particularly like rum.

This non-alcoholic rum from Ish utilizes a novel dealcoholization method, and is itself quite novel. While it’s a bit challenging as a neat sipper, it shows up nicely in cocktails and captures a funkiness elusive to most NA rums.

This non-alcoholic rum from Seir Hill let us down, and while it didn’t taste great, it avoided some of the worst failures of zero proof.

This non-alcoholic rum from Bare Zero has a banana-forward profile that plays great in cockatils.

This 15 year old pot still rum from Long Pond balances heavy cask notes with moderate Jamaican fruit, and is a neat exemplar of the distillery’s juice before The Fire™.

This 18 year old pot still rum from Appleton Estate is proof that Appleton has range. Banana bread, dried berries, pineapple, leather.

This high-ester installment in Hampden’s annual Great House series is aggressively packed with flavor. Overripe fruits dominate, with spice, vinegar, and vegetal notes in the background.

This 6 year old molasses-based pot still rum from Hampden is sort of the upper-middle class of the ester world. Pineapple, banana, ester, cinnamon.

This 10 year old molasses-based pot still rum from Worthy Park keeps you guessing. Oak, banana, pineapple, brown sugar and allspice.

This 12 year molasses-based pot still rum from Worthy Park is classically handsome. Rich oak, overripe bananas, dried cherries, and a bit of leather.

This pot column blend from J. Wray & Nephew gave us strong notes molasses and chocolate, with hints of banana, grape, wood, brown sugar, and baking spice.

This pot still rum distilled at Worthy Park in Jamaica and finished in Moscatel casks in Michigan gave us note of overripe banana and pineapple.

This young, pot still rum distilled by Worthy Park gave us notes of overripe banana with hints of butter, pear, flower shop, cinnamon, and ginger.

This molasses based pot still rum from Hampden Estate gave us notes of pineapple, oak and solvent, with hints of coconut, banana, pepper, ginger, mango and dried stone fruit.

This molasses based pot column blend from multiple Jamaican distilleries gave us notes of spices and toasted sugar, with hints of cola, banana, maple, pepper and coffee.

This molasses based pot column blend from Appleton Estate gave us notes of oak and toasted sugar, with notes of caramel, molasses, botanicals, orange peel, cinnamon and vanilla.

This molasses pot column blend from an unknown Jamaican distillery gave us notes of solvent and pineapple, with hints of banana, brown sugar, tea, and oak.

This pot still rum from multiple Jamaican distilleries gave us strong notes of solvent and smoke, with hints of caramel, banana, brine, ginger and medicine.

This pot column blend from multiple Jamaican distilleries gave us notes of banana and baking spice, with hints of chocolate, pie crust, coffee, and rubber.

This pot column blend from multiple Jamaican distilleries gave us notes of tropical fruit and butterscotch, with subtler hints of solvent, strawberry, pineapple, coconut, and baking spice.

This pot still rum from Worthy Park Estate in Jamaica gave us strong notes of toasted sugar and banana, with subtler hints of oak, orange, pineapple, allspice, and vanilla.

This pot column blend from Appleton Estate in Jamaica gave us strong notes of caramel of chocolate, with hints of vanilla, brown sugar, ethanol, bitterness, and molasses.

This unaged pot still distilled by Worthy Park in Jamaica and bottled by Ed Hamilton’s Ministry of Rum gave us notes of butter, grass and sweat, with hints of cream, flowershop, leather, and coconut.

This pot column blend from multiple distilleries in Jamaica gave us notes of molasses and solvent, with subtler hints of pineapple, green apple, caramel, banana bread and vanilla.

This pot column blend from Appleton Estate in Jamaican gave us strong notes of brown sugar and wood, with subtler hints of caramel, cinnamon, pineapple, orange peel and glue.

This iconic pot still rum from multiple Jamaican distilleries gave us strong notes of pineapple and solvent, with subtler hints of acetic acid, berry, smoke, banana, rubber, flower, and ginger.

This pot still rum from Worthy Park in Jamaica gave us strong notes of banana, with subtler hints of cereal, apple, varnish, allspice, coconut, toffee, and oak.

This vintage installment in the Foursquare ECS line gave us notes of vanilla and oak, with subtler hints of brown sugar, ginger, and chemical.

This vintage installment in the Foursquare ECS line gave us strong notes of vanilla, oak and brown sugar, with subtler hints of caramel and baking spices.

This vintage installment in the Foursquare ECS line gave us strong notes of vanilla and oak, with subtler hints of allspice, coffee, ginger, and cinnamon.

This pot column blend from Foursquare in Barbados gave us strong notes of vanilla and oak, with subtler hints of caramel, dried coconut, and baking spices.

This zero-proof rum from 270º Botanicals gave us strong notes of latex and pineapple, with subtler hints of bubblegum.

This zero-proof rum from Lyre’s gave us strong notes of pineapple and coconut, with subtler hints of butter, ginger, flowers, chile, citrus.

This zero proof rum from ArKay gave us strong notes of vanilla cake and refrigerant, with subtler hints of bubblegum, cotton candy, coconut, and crayon.

This zero proof rum from 270º Botanicals gave us strong notes of latex and burnt meat, with subtler hints of caramel, artificial coffee, and nondescript nut.

This zero proof rum from Lyre’s gave us strong notes of caramel, with subtler hints of cola, butterscotch, baking spice and mint.

This zero proof rum from Strykk gave us strong notes of mint, and ginger, with subtler hints of black tea, orange, vanilla and oak.

This zero proof rum from Crystal gave us insanely strong notes of bubblegum and not much else. Perhaps this was a bit of peach.

This zero proof rum from Monday gave us strong notes of cereal and oak, with subtler hints of oak, caramel, citrus, banana, and decaf coffee.

This zero proof rum from Ritual gave us strong notes of cereal and baking spice, with subtler hints of charred apricot, oak, ginger, cinnamon and citrus.