Jun 162023
 

Rumaniacs Review #154 | 1006

In this series of Rumaniacs reviews (R-149 to R-154) we’ve been looking at a set of Bacardi rums from the 1970s to the 1990s that were all part of a small collection I picked up, spanning three decades and made in Mexico and Puerto Rico – they display something of what rums from that bygone era was like, and in this final review I’ll sum up what few observations that can be made.


Preamble – The Select is a successor to the venerable “Black” or “Black Label” or “Premium Black.” Some of these labels were retired in the 1990s, although it would appear that some continued to be made concurrently for a while, and labelled as such in separate markets (a new version of the Black was reintroduced in 2014 in the UK, for example, similar to the one I reviewed back in 2010). The Select was aged for around four years and also made in charred barrels like the Dark editions then were, and the Cuatro is now; and while a search around the online shops shows it remains sporadically available (Rum Ratings has recent commentaries on it), it has definitely been discontinued and folded into the Carta Negra rebrand. The exact date is a little tricky – the last reviews and commentary online about it seem to all date from purchases made pre-2010, and if neither the Rum Howler or I have it in our early reviews then it’s a fair bet that by the turn of the first decade, the Select was dead and gone.

Strength – 40%

Colour – Dark Gold

Label Notes – Produced by Bacardi Corp. San Juan, Puerto Rico

Nose – Honey, caramel, coffee, chocolate, toffee, nuts, a reasonable helping of dried fruits.  Raisins, prunes, dates. Licorice and some woodsy notes, quite nice. Could hold its own in today’s world and one can see the iterations of the Black come together into something slightly newer, and incrementally better.

Palate – Also quite good compared to others. Coats the mouth nicely with brine, caramel, coffee, mocha, nougat and some almonds. Bitter chocolate, smoke, leather and honey. One thing I liked about it was that vague sense of the plastic and leather and vinyl of a cheap mid range new car owned by Leisure Suit Larry. It’s not entirely successful but does add a little character, which too many Bacardis don’t have at all.

Finish – Short, warm and breathy. Mostly brown sugar and caramel with the slightest nudge of lemon zest.

Thoughts – One wonders if giving it a score of 80 (which it deserves) is damning it with faint praise. but after so many of these Bacardis I really gotta ask, is too much to hope for something more? The rum is well done and it’s the best of the lot, but really, I was left wanting a larger helping of the potential this suggested it had, but never delivered.  

For that, I think I have to go either further back, or into the modern era.

(80/100) ⭐⭐⭐


Opinion – Summing Up Six Bacardis

Bacardi has always hewed to the middle of the low end road and focused on their core competency of making their various blends, until recently when they started putting out rums with real age statements; the Ocho and Diez are quite capable near-sipping rum experiences, for example. Even the 16YO is beginning to expand the range of the Bat’s capabilities into the high end, though few reviewers have anything good to say about the brand as a whole, or much to say about the company’s rums at all (which I think is a mistake).

These six early rums (and some others I’ve looked at over the years) make it clear why Bacardi has the reputation it does — or lacks one.  Unlike most major companies, whose rums from forty or fifty years ago were distinct, unique and often fascinating essays in the craft, and which gradually moved towards a more approachable middle, with Bacardi the opposite seems to be the case. Their earlier rums from the 1970s to early 2000s were mostly uninspiring, flat, mild, not-that-tasty mixing agents which barely moved the needle in a cocktail’s taste (often they were adjuncts to the fruit and mixes) and certainly never induced as much as a quiver in people’s minds as sipping rums. They were made that way and they stayed that way

And that was the (mildly) aged rums – the white rums were worse. Compared to today’s robust and muscular white unaged Blutos from anywhere on the planet, Bacardi’s whites, never mind their title of “Superior” were and are picking up footprints, and considered mostly filtered anonymous crap, closer to vodkas then real rums. Few have anything good to say about them, and almost no writer I know of has ever bothered to run them through the wringer.

The characteristics these six rums demonstrate, then, are not new phenomena but have been so for a long time.  “You got to go back a lot further than the 1970s to find a decent Bacardi, “ remarked Richard Seale when he read one of these mini retrospectives.  I have taken his implied advice and started sourcing the oldest Bacardis I can find from pre-1970s era sales, so one day – hopefully not too far from now – I can provide another retrospective of six more from even further back, to either prove or disprove the assertion.

But that’s going into the past. As I noted above, as the years moved on — and as the retrospectives’ incrementally improving scores suggested — the mainstream Bacardi rums actually started getting better. The Select was quite nice, I thought, and today’s Carta Negra, aged editions, and even the Facundo and Single Cane series, show a company that is slowly, incrementally, even reluctantly, branching out into profiles that are more interesting, and into areas others have colonised but which perhaps may now profitably be copied. We may be living through an era which future writers will see as the renaissance of the house’s reputation for real quality, not because they’re the only ones making any (as they were back in the day), but because they really have improved…however marginally.


Supplementary Reading

I consulted some books regarding Bacardi’s background to prepare for this addendum, as well as search for bottling and labelling history (mostly without success).  There’s no shortage of the history, but not a whole lot about labelling or branding – and company websites are almost universally silent about this kind of thing. Matt Pietrek’s recently published book Modern Caribbean Rum — which will surely go down as one of the most useful and indispensable rum reference works of our time — helped a little, and I enjoyed the historical works of Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba (Tom Gjelten) and The Rise of Bacardi: From Cuban Rum to a Global Empire (Jorge Del Rosal)…that said, not much on the evolution of their blends and brands and labels.

Dr. Sneermouth’s dismissal aside, Google image searches did help, as did that great Czech site Peter’s Rum labels. Older reviewers from Ago, whose names and sites few now recall, also fleshed out some plot points of the short series: The Pirate King wrote an undated but surely pre-2008 review of the Select; and so did El Machete, in 2007, when he penned a very unfavourable opinion on it. The Fat Rum Pirate wrote a small piece on the Bacardi Black in 2014, as did I back in 2010. It’s from reading and dating such reviews that some information can be gleaned, but even here, there are limits…which of course is why the Rumaniacs exists to begin with.


 

Jun 142023
 

Rumaniacs Review #153 | 1005

In this series of Rumaniacs reviews (R-149 to R-154) we’re looking at a set of Bacardis from the 1970s to the 1990s that were all part of a small collection I picked up, spanning three decades and made in Mexico and Puerto Rico – they display something of what rums from that bygone era was like, and the final review will have a  series of notes summing up what few conclusions we may be able to draw.


Although some online references to the rum suggest a 1990s dating, the “Premium Black” is older, introduced much earlier: it was already a fixture by the mid 1980s. The diagonal red label design was discontinued in 1980, but let’s be conservative and give it something of a window around that date.

The Black — or more precisely, the ‘dark rum’ style it represented — seems to have gone through a number of changes over the years as its makers appeared not to know what to do with it (except maybe find a dark rum mixer for people to play with): it was variously called Ron Superior Premium Black, simply “Black”, Carta Negra, Superior Dark, issued at anywhere between 37% to 40%, and in all cases the dark colour was advertised as being imparted by heavily charred barrels, and, more recently, by caramel colouring.

Nowhere is the age mentioned, which seems to be a thing with Bacardi until a few years ago – perhaps because they blended like crazy, NAS was fine and they never felt it to be necessary until they twigged onto to the potential value of a real age statement when the 8 YO became a big seller. In the absence of anything better I’ll suggest that it’s a youngish blend of rums under five years old, but more than that I wouldn’t venture.

Strength – 40%

Colour – Dark Gold

Label Notes – Produced by Bacardi Corp. San Juan, Puerto Rico

Nose – Very nice.  Say what you will about The Bat (and a lot has been), their low end rums are consistently of better than average quality for their (heavily and illegally subsidised) prices. The nose is quite good, here: Danish cookies, caramel, toffee, honey, all the hits, plus vanilla and coconut shavings. Citrus, coffee, well polished leather…nice, if not new.

Palate – Sweet, smooth and war. Again, little that we have not already tried.  Caramel, toffee, salt butter, vanilla ice cream, a squirt of lemon juice. Traces of flowers and honey trail behind all this. 

Finish – Short, warm, aromatic. Pipe tobacco, florals, toffee and vanilla

Thoughts – Overall it’s nice and better than the four we’ve reviewed thus far.  So what?  It’s being damned with faint praise, is all. After it edges towards a more intriguing profile and the tantalising sense of something new, it retreats: one is therefore left with a sense of frustrated disappointment, at a rum which had potential and then returned to the safety of what was known.  Too bad.

(78/100) ⭐⭐⭐

Jun 122023
 

Rumaniacs Review #152 | 1004

In this series of Rumaniacs reviews (R-149 to R-154) we’re looking at a set of Bacardis from the 1970s to the 1990s that were all part of a small collection I picked up, spanning three decades and made in Mexico and Puerto Rico – they display something of what rums from that bygone era was like, and the final review will have a  series of notes summing up what few conclusions we may be able to draw.

The antecedents of the Bacardi Añejo — a word simply meaning “aged” in Spanish — are the same as the Carta Blanca we looked at in R-150.  Made in the Mexican facility at Tultitlan, it likely predated the 1980s by which time all units of measure went fully metric for sale in the US market. However, the ubiquity and long history of production of any aged rums from the company (I looked at a 6 YO 1980s Anejo from Puerto Rico some years ago, for example) make that dating tricky at best. It is likely no longer in production, mind you: the Añejo moniker was applied to the four year old Cuatro in 2020, the strength was beefed up a mite, and you can’t find the old Añejo listed on Bacardi’s website – that said, the volumes of this rum that were on the market were so great it’s not unlikely one can still find them to this day, from any era.

As with most Bacardi entry level rons – which this undoubtedly was – it’s column still, molasses based and lightly aged.  Back in 2019 when Wes reviewed one of these – also at 38% but noted as being “original formula” which mine conspicuously lacks – he remarked that his bottle surely predated a 2015 label switch based on what else he could see lon the shelves, and it was possibly around 3 years old, which I think is about right.

Strength – 38%

Colour – Gold

Label Notes – Tultitlan Edo. de Mexico. 38° G.L.

Nose – There’s a bit more going on here than the lower strength would suggest, a sort of low grade pungency quite unexpected for a 38% rum.  Perhaps that’s because it’s actually 40% according to my hydrometer.  Some light salted caramel, fruit, florals, raisins, vanilla, and some wet coconut shavings.  Also black tea, salted butter and a touch oif citrus. Nothing really special here: the aroma simply suggest a well assembled product.

Palate – A rather restrained, yet still reasonably pungent mix of linseed oil on wood, furniture polish, well-oiled leather, caramel, honey and citrus. If you pressed me I’d suggest some black pepper and ginger notes, but they’re so faint it may just be reaching.

Finish – Short, peppery, caramel and unsweetened mauby, some honey and vanilla.

Thoughts – Compared to the rather poor showing of the three we’ve already seen dating back from around the same time period, this is a bit better. Still a mixer and still not a fancy upscale product, but I started warming up to Bacardi again after trying this and seeing they were not all milquetoast and moonbeams masquerading as something more muscular.

(78/100) ⭐⭐⭐

Jun 092023
 

Rumaniacs Review #151 | 1003

This series of Rumaniacs reviews (R-149 to R-154) is a set of Bacardis from the 1970s to the 1990s that were all part of a small collection I picked up, spanning three decades and made in Mexico and Puerto Rico – they display something of what rums from that bygone era was like, and the final review will have a  series of notes summing up what few conclusions we may be able to draw.


Bacardi’s Gold rum (in all its iterations) is one of the oldest continuously made rums in existence, dating back to the 1890s or before – in fact it may have been one of the original rums made by Facundo Bacadi in the 1860s. By 1892 it was so well regarded that Spain’s King Alfonse XIII allowed the use of the royal coat of arms by Bacardi as a tribute to it — and it’s adorned Bacardi labels ever since, even if the name of the rum has seen some evolution.

The age is indeterminate – I’ll suggest 1-2 years, which is consistent with today’s Golds. A mixing agent, not anything even remotely premium. It’s meant for cocktails and is a column still blend.

A coarse dating of production starts at 1959-2000 based on the logo design; the use of both metric and imperial units narrows this down to the late 1970s or early 1980s (the USA made metric mandatory for spirits labels in the mid 1970s, and there was an extended period when both units were used).  An Anejo version of the Reserve was released in 1981, which of course means this one existed already by that time.

Strength – 40%

Colour – Gold

Label Notes – Puerto Rican Rum

Nose – Honey, caramel, toffee, light citrus, the vaguest sense of saline. All the usual suspects are in the lineup, feeling washed up and past their prime. Light and easy, the rum actually smells weaker than its advertised strength: thin, watery and alcoholic.

Palate – Dry, warm, slightly spicy, lacks the courage to bite you. Most of what little was in the nose repeats here in a more watery form.  Honey, nougat, toffee, vanilla, coconut shavings.  Some leather and smoke, maybe, it’s gone too fast to tell.

Finish – Here now, gone a second later.  Dry, a bit woody, hardly any taste at all.

Thoughts – This rum is about as expected. Light, sweetish Caribbean Spanish-style rum of little distinction, and could be the entry level low-aged candidate starter kit from just about anywhere in latin or South America (except maybe Brazil, Guyana or Suriname). Sorry, but it’s quite anonymous and forgettable – even today’s edition has somewhat more character. Nothing to report here, then. 

(72/100)

Jun 072023
 

Rumaniacs Review #150 | 1002

This series of Rumaniacs reviews (R-149 to R-154) we’ll be looking at over the next week or so, is a set of Bacardis from the 1970s to the 1990s that were all part of a small collection I picked up, spanning three decades and made in Mexico and Puerto Rico – they display something of what rums from that bygone era was like, and the final review will have a  series of notes summing up what few conclusions we may be able to draw.

Dating this one was interesting. The Legendario Carta Blanca brand (sometimes just called Carta Blanca) has been made since at least the 1920s, and it takes a detailed look at the label, place of make and the changes in the bat logo to establish a rough estimate of when it was made.  Here we know that the bottom line has to be 1961 since that was when the Tultitlan factory in Mexico was completed and in 2006 the name Carta Blanca was globally discontinued. Too, the bat logo on this bottle was changed in 2002, so…

One collector suggested it was perhaps made in the 1990s but I tracked down a label precisely  matching this one that seemed, with the notes I have from the seller, to place it more conclusively from the 1970s, and so unless someone has better information, I’ll leave it there (note that the labels changed almost not at all during those decades).  

The Legendario Carta Blanca is a blend of light and  heavy bodied rums, aged between one and two years then charcoal filtered to remove the colour – it is therefore a direct descendant of the original rum Bacardi made in the 19th century, which established the brand.  Nowadays, it’s been rebranded, and is called the Superior.

Strength – 40%

Colour – White

Label Notes – “Carta Blanca”, “Tultitlan Edo. De Mexico”

Nose – Almost nothing here, less than the 1970s Superior we looked at before (R-149), and that one, while decent, was no standout. Starts off with some brine and olives, to the point where we feel some mescal has sneaked its way in here (very much like the Limitada Oaxaca, just weaker). Noy sweet at all – oily, slightly meaty, opens up into some nice cherries and flowers. 

Palate – By the time we get to taste, the brine is starting to disappear and the rum transforms into something sweeter, lighter with a bit of light fruits (pears, red cashews), sugar water and very light melons and citrus, though you have to strain to get that much/

Finish – A little sharp, briny, the slightest bite of some woodiness, coconuts shavings.

Thoughts – This one might benefit from some time and patience, because it develops better once left to open for a while. That said, nailing it down is not easy because it’s faint enough that the flavours kind of run together into a miscellaneous mishmash.  Disappointing.

(73/100)


Other Notes

  • The city of Tultitlan’s name shows it’s a very old part of Mexico (the name is Toltec). It is now a northern suburb of Mexico City and was built by a famous firm of architects Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Felix Candela between 1958 and 1961 (van der Rohe designed the corporate Office Building, and Felix Candela designed bottling plant and distillery cellars). The fact that it was constructed so long ago suggests that the family was already expanding (and hedging its bets) way before they were exiled from Cuba after the Revolution.
Jun 052023
 

Rumaniacs Review #149 | 1001

This series of Rumaniacs reviews (R-149 to R-154) we’ll be looking at over the next week or two, is a set of Bacardis from the 1970s to the 1990s that were all part of a small collection I picked up, spanning three decades, and made in Mexico and Puerto Rico – they display something of what rums from that bygone era was like, and the final review will have a series of notes summing up what few conclusions we may be able to draw.

This Bacardi Superior noted as being “Silver Label” is the doddering uncle of the set. The label refers to an 80 proof 1/10 pint white rum, which suggests the pre-1980 dating after which ABV and a metric system common (in the USA) – the rum of that title continued to be made until the 1980s after which it just became Ron Bacardi Superior. Puerto Rico is where the facilities of the company are headquartered, of course, so there’s little to be gathered here. It’s entirely possible that it goes back even to the 1960s – something about the label just suggests that dating and I’ve seen a similar one from 1963 – but for now let’s stick with a more conservative estimate.

It’s not a stretch to infer some fairly basic facts about the Silver Label Superior: it’s probably (but very likely) lightly aged, say a year or two; column still; and filtered.  Beyond that we’re guessing. Still, even from those minimal data points, a pretty decent rum was constructed so let’s go and find out what it samples like.

Strength – 40%

Colour – White

Label Notes – “Silver Label”, Made in Puerto Rico

Nose – Weak and thin, mostly just alcohol fumes, sweet light and reeking faintly of bananas, Some slight saltiness, acetones, bitter black tea and a few ripe cherries. There’s a clean sort of lightness to it, like laundry powder.

Palate – Interesting: briny and with olives right at the start; also some very delicate and yet distinct aromas of flowers.  Some fanta, 7-up and tart yoghurt, the vague sourness of gooseberries and unripe soursop, papaya and green mangoes.

Finish – Again, interesting, i that it lasts a fair bit. Nothing new really – some light fruits, pears and watermelons, a dusting of acetones and brine. Overall, it’s thin gruel and slim pickings.

Thoughts – Although most of these early Bacardi’s (especially the blancas) don’t usually do much for me, I have to admit being surprised with the overall worth of this older one. There are some characterful notes which if left untamed could be unpleasant: here the easy sweetness carries it past any serious problems and it comes out as quite a decent rum in its own right.  Original and groundbreaking it’s not, and certainly not a standout – but it is nice.

(76/100)

Mar 132023
 

The Bacardi “Diez” – or, to give the rum its full title, the Bacardi Gran Reserva ”Diez” 10 Year Old Extra Rare Gold Rum – is the top of the trio of the company’s mid-level “kind-of” premium range.  Below it are the old workhorses of the añejo, gold, blanco, black, superior and so on; in its playpen also reside the Cuatro and Ocho (and maybe the Reserva Limitada); and above it are the more exclusively minted bottles of the Facundo line – the Paraiso, Neo, Eximo and Exquisito (I am deliberately excluding the relatively new single barrel editions and the Single Cane series as they don’t neatly fall into consistent ranges).

Because of its reasonable (and subsidised) cost, and its decent profile, the Diez was a serious contender for the Key Rums tag which finally went to the Ocho; it didn’t only lose out because of availability, but because overall, I felt it just didn’t come to the table with everything a tropically aged ten year old should. Let’s go straight in and step it through its paces and I’ll try to explain.

The nose starts out reasonably warm, with baking spices (cinnamon, nutmeg), smoke, polished leather, some tannic bite and licorice blending nice. Some caramel ice cream, banana, coconut shavings, white chocolate a nice mix of tannic, bitter and sweet held together with the muskier (but faint)  notes of toffee and brown sugar.  It’s workmanlike, but nothing to excite. It’s like a better añejo, really, with some of the edges sanded off and better complexity (which would be the least of what we could expect).

Tastewise, nothing new, nothing exciting, nothing special. Just more of the same old thing, although admittedly quite well done. Vanilla and caramel and molasses lead the charge, with breakfast and baking spices hastening to bolster the centre.  Leather, smoke and some light crisp fruits gallop around the flanks and are moving too quickly – here one minute gone the next – for any kind of serious engagement…they exist to be noticed but not to grapple with. Raisins, plums, some faint apples define the back end and a short and warm finish, and that’s what a ten year old under fifty bucks will get you.

The tech stats weren’t provided earlier in this review because I honestly didn’t think it was necessary: it’s well known that Bacardi’s rums are column still, short fermentation, light rums, whose taste profile comes primarily from expert barrel selection and blend management by the company’s legendary maestros roneros.The rum is a blend of rums aged a minimum of ten years, is 40% and really, were we expecting more? It’s main selling point may just be that price.

Let’s try to sum up. What we have here is a completely fine Bacardi rum, competently made, nicely aged, a decent Latin-style hooch, light, easy drinking, with some taste chops to write home about – even the slightly added dosage doesn’t detract from that, though I think it’s unnecessary, really. Any surprise would be if it wasn’t all those things, and it is indeed a ways above the made-for-the-mixing-proletariat Superior and Gold and Anejo that sell by the tanker load and keep Bacardi’s sales numbers flying high. On top of that, the Diez is demonstrably better than the 4YO “Cuatro”, addressing many of that young premium’s weaknesses: it is more complex, has more going on and seems more suited for the sipper’s glass. 

What it doesn’t do is eclipse the solidity of the 8YO “Ocho” which also ticks many of the same boxes; moreover, the Diez seems content to go down the familiar path of “same but incrementally better,” and is hardly a serious upgrade from any of its junior brethren. The makers seem to have had no inclination to find new worlds to explore or new profiles to demonstrate,  that would show some innovation, a willingness to go off the reservation, if only a little. I find that disappointing. There are enough standard-strength, standard-profiled, standard-priced rums in Bacardi’s stable, and in anyone’s corner shop. If you’re one of the biggest kids on the block, with over a century of experience behind you, you can surely do better than repeat the same old shtick with a new number.

(#980)(80/100) ⭐⭐⭐


Other notes

  • There are few other reviews for balance out there (even reddit is sparse on the ground here), but no shortage of votes and evaluations. The Rum Howler gave it 90.5 points in 2019; Vinepair’s staff rated it 91 points; two Tastings.com reviewers apparently scored it 94 points apiece in 2022 but since no names are provided and we have no idea who they are, I can’t comment further except to suggest they might do well to broaden their horizons; ¾ of the ratings on RumRatings were 7 out of 10 or better; 77 voters on Flaviar rated it an average of 8.2; and 42 users of Rum-X rated it an average of 70/100 (ouch). Paul Senft, writing for GotRum magazine in August 2019 (the only other full length review I could find), gave it a cautious endorsement while commenting he expected more, and would stick with the Ocho “for a more versatile experience.”
  • It is recommended that you read the reviews of the Cuatro and Ocho for some background thoughts on this trio of Bacardi’s rums.
  • The “nutrition” label on the website says it has 0.5 grams of sugar per serving of 1.5 ozs, which works out to about 11.3 g/L
  • Rum tasted here was the 2009 edition.
Feb 012023
 

Bacardi hardly needs an introduction.  It’s a company of ancient vintage (in rum years), one of the first and remaining big guns of the entire sector, with a storied past from the 19th century, involving the rise of an immigrant family, ruthless business practises, revolution, heartbreak, loss, global expansion and emergence at the other end as one of the great spirits conglomerates in the world. In so doing it has carved a reputation for itself so enormous that one hardly needs to say rum after its name, it is so synonymous and clearly identified with that one single drink.

And yet Bacardi as a whole has a curiously ambivalent relationship with the rum population of today, and the reputation it sports is not without its downside. Their rum is not seen as a stopping point but a start, something to leap beyond, quickly, as soon as one’s wallet can reasonably afford the extra increments that would allow one to buy a true “premium” (by whatever standard people use to define one). For this, to some extent, I blame Bacardi’s modus operandi of relentlessly pushing high-volume, low-quality mass-selling low-priced everyman rums like the Blanca, Gold or even the Superior, into every market possible without regard for improving them much or seeking to colonise a more elevated ethos of quality or premiumisation.

Even if they sell like crazy the flip side is that such ubiquitous cheap rums dilute brand appreciation and make more upscale offerings seem equally lacklustre. These days, rum writers barely acknowledge or review them any longer. And, as many of today’s expanding indies have found, while you certainly need low-priced blue-collar young rums to sell and make cash flow, you also really premium aged rums to seriously develop the brand ito a true quality seller with consumer recognition and appreciation – something Bacardi has singularly failed to do in spite of efforts like the Facundo line, the occasional ultra-expensive halo releases, or the Single Cane brand 1

Whatever our opinion of the Bat, however, we must always consider the groundwork laid by its famed blends from decades past — because among all the dross, we can indeed find the occasional surprise lying like a forgotten gem in the mud and dreck of carelessly made cheap supermarket hooch we see every day.  And one of these is the rebranded Bacardi 8 year old, now called the “Reserva Ocho Rare Gold Rum.”  To my mind it is among the best of the not-quite-upscale rums Bacardi makes, and Bacardi seems to have recognized it also, because they recently established (2021) the Ocho as an anchor of Bacardi’s Premium rums which began releasing variations with different finishes to buff and bolster the line.

The Bacardi Ocho / 8 in all its various guises remains quite affordable, has a solid age statement, has several components of the blend which are older than the youngest 8YO, and even if it’s issued at a lacklustre 40% (when will they move beyond that ridiculous self imposed standard, honestly? Is even 43% or 45% for major broad based releases too much to ask for?) it does have more in its trousers than is generally acknowledged. 

The nose, for example, shows that quality, if perhaps too subtly for some.  Even at that milquetoast strength, one can detect cinnamon, woodiness, leather, licorice, vanilla, and citrus. It’s reasonably complex for 40% – the sly and subtle fruity notes which dance and play and disappear just as soon as one comes to grips with them are a case in point – but after the off-kilter memory of the Exclusiva, it remains a somewhat less memorable dram.  It is, however, clearly and professionally made, a good step above the Gold, or the Cuatro.

The palate is a harder nut to crack. There are definitely tasting notes to be had for the diligent: it is relatively soft, warm, a touch spicy.  There are notes of masala, cumin and cinnamon, standing cheek by jowl with vanilla, a squeeze of lemon zest, mauby bark, strong tea, and a hint of sweetness developing at just the right time.  So you’re getting bitter and sweet, and a nice lick of the tannins from the barrel, offset to some extent by softer, more fruity notes.  I just wish there were more, and the low strength makes the short and light finish a rather pallid affair – it’s aromatic, woody, tannic, tobacco-infused, with some sweet to balance things off…there’s just not enough of it, I think.

For reasons surpassing my understanding, the whole rum gives this impression of trying hard to be less when it’s actually more, a perception that dogs the brand nowadays. Most reviewers don’t know what to do about the company’s wares, really, and in fact many new writers and commentators walk straight past the company and jump straight into favoured indie bottlers and expensive new craft rums (I envy them this ability, sometimes) without often stopping to wonder at the strange longevity and quality of what, at first sight, doesn’t seem to be much. It’s gotten to the point where any crowd pleasing column-still rum made by a massive conglomerate is not usually seen as a member of the Key Rums pantheon.

Yet I believe that there are reasons why a rum like this can not only be called key, but serious. It does, of course, tick all the boxes.  It is affordable, whatever one might say about the source of that low cost. It is available, a point to which my personal travels can attest – I’ve found the rum from the small speakeasies of Alaska and the Yukon to the bars of Central Asia, for illicit sale in the Middle East and just about everywhere in between.  The Bacardi Gold is even more easily gotten (and even cheaper) but when it comes to some decent sipping quality of rum, it’s either the 8 or the 10 and for my money, given its decades-long availability everywhere I looked (or didn’t), the 8 gets it because the ten just doesn’t cut the mustard for me in the same way.

Bacardi’s rums as they have been for ages, don’t rely overmuch on flavours developed by fermentation or prioritise the distillation apparatus the way new kids on the block do; their expertise is in wood management, careful barrel usage and selection, and then the subsequent blending. They are based on the skill of maestros roneros with oodles of experience and decades of background in the craft.  What comes out the other end can’t be denied, and when I consider the oft-unacknowledged chops of the Ocho as one of the premiere Spanish heritage style rums of the world, it is clear that it isn’t just a key rum for me, but a benchmark against which I rate many others of the style. And that’s no mean achievement for a brand often dismissed as yesterday’s leftovers.  As I’ve tried to make clear here, it really shouldn’t be,

(#969)(82/100) ⭐⭐⭐½


Other Notes

  • The blend is tweaked slightly but remeins quite consistent.  Of the five different labels shown in the picture, only the green rye-finish edition is substantially and noticeably different.
  • Although made in Puerto Rico, I argue it is less a local Key Rum emblematic of the island, than a global one.
Sep 082022
 

The Bacardi Añejo “Cuatro” hews to all the markers of the long-running Gold and Añejo variations upon which its distillery’s fame rests.  It represents Bacardi in fine style, and those who pay the twenty five dollars or less it costs will find their comfort zone is well tended. Because, while it is a blend of mostly four year old rums (with some five and six year old rums mixed in), column still origin and filtered after ageing, the fact is that it represents the standards set by rums of yesteryear while positioning itself as an entry level almost-premium of today. Yeah…but no. There is not enough that’s original here.

Which is not to say it’s not pleasing by itself, within its limits, just that it has to be approached with some care, as it’s light to begin with, so the entire profile bends towards the subtle, not the club in the face. The nose, for example, is warm and gentle as befits a 40% light Cuban-style rum. It faithfully hits all the notes that made Bacardi famous – light caramel, cloves and brown sugar, some sharper tannins, tbacco and leather, interspersed with softer hints of banana, vanilla, green grapes, and perhaps some lemon and camomile tea thrown in.  Easy sniffing, gentle nosing, very pleasant, no aggro, no worries.

The same profile attends to the palate, which begins with some spiciness, but of course settles down fast.  It’s a bit rough around the edges – the dry and sharper woody tannic notes don’t mesh well with the leather, aromatic tobacco and unsweetened caramel – but overall the additional vanilla, citrus and banana tastes help it come together.  Some notes of black tea and condensed milk, a slight creaminess and then it’s on to a short, breathy finish that drifts languorously by, exhaling some sweet coffee and chocolate, a touch of molasses and freshly sawn lumber, and then it’s over.

To some extent the tasting notes as described say something about the pit of indifference into which the rum has fallen since its introduction. The issue is not that it’s good (or not), just that it’s not entirely clear what the points of it is. The gold or añejo of years past filled its duty admirably without going for an age statement, so why release the Cuatro at all?  Because it could eke out a few extra dollars? 

Summing up: the rum is okay, but in trying to be all things to all drinkers, falls into the trap of being neither great mixer not recommended sipper, being unsuited to fully satisfy either. For example, the filtration it undergoes removes the bite of youth and something of the biff-pow that a good mixing rum makes, and if that’s what it is, why not spend even less and go for the blanco or other even cheaper options? And at the other end, the age is too young to enthuse the connoisseur looking for a sipping rum – for such people, rightly or wrongly, sipping territory starts with rums older than five years, even ten…not four. 

Had Bacardi boosted the rum a few more proof points, aged it a bit more, then they might actually have had something new, even innovative — but rather than show a little courage and diversify into the bottom rung of premiums, Bacardi have copped out and played it safe. Since the Cuatro is not completely anonymous and does display some character, I suppose taken on its own terms it sort of kind of works — so long as you know and accept what those terms are.  I don’t, and couldn’t be bothered to find out, so it doesn’t work for me.

(#935)(76/100) ⭐⭐⭐


Opinion

These days, Bacardi rums just can’t cop a break. Ignored by most serious rum folk, relegated to consideration as a supermarket shelf filler without distinction, they are deemed bottom feeders that have corrupted the innocent palates of whole generations of broke and brainless college students and made them switch to whisky. Bacard’s very ubiquity and massive sales disguise their “good ‘nuff” quality, and have been behind its inability to be taken seriously in the modern age.  From once being seen as the pinnacle of rumdom in the 1950s and ‘60s, the spiritous peak to which all wannabe rum distilleries aspired, the rums of the company have fallen to “commodity” status, while a decade’s worth of young and nimble indies and micro upstarts have taken aim at it and started to chip away at the edifice.  And you’d better believe that just about nobody even bothers to rate (let alone review) their rums without an occasional scoff and guffaw. That’s what selling more cheap rums than just about anyone else on the planet gets you.

Which is not to say that Bacardi is in any danger of losing the coveted space on or near the top of the sales heap. The shyly accepted subsidies (“oh no, we really can’t, really….oh well, but if you insist…”) that are funnelled to them in the land of purportedly meritocratic capitalism via enormous tax breaks and the despised Cover-Over Tax, ensure that when a Bacardi rum goes up against any other of equivalent stats, the Bat will be orders of magnitude cheaper, even if it is of no more than equal or lesser value.

Bacardi rums have just about always been light column still blends (with some pot still juice of unknown amount in the mix). The company has never really gone the full-proof limited-release route (the 151 doesn’t really count and is in any case discontinued), and while they dabbled their toes into the water of the indie bottling scene, it made no sense for them to do it if they couldn’t do it at scale – which they won’t, for the same reasons DDL more or less gave up on the Rares…the margins were too slim for volumes that were too small. Even the hyped special editions like the Paraiso didn’t break any seriously new ground – sure they were good blends, but to my mind there was nothing that wasn’t available elsewhere for less, and that 40% and the NAS? Today’s customers will not blow the money those cost on a product like that – they’re going after the boutique market, an area that I maintain Bacardi has never managed to successfully break into.

Except, in a way, they did try, with the trio of aged expressions of which the Cuatro is the youngest.  To my mind, even with my rather dismissive tasting notes, these three rums – the Cuatro, the Ocho and the Diez – are among the better budget-minded rums the company makes. They lack the anonymity of the superior, the blanco, the gold or the dark (or variants thereof).  They’re priced reasonably to move, and they have that veneer of true ageing about them.  Given the lack of any ultra-aged high-proofed rums out there made by their company, these might be the best we can expect from Bacardi for a while.


 

Oct 062019
 

There’s so many peculiar things going on with this rum it’s tough to find a convenient starting place, so let’s begin with what facts lie behind the rum itself and then go from there.  The rum is a Jamaican Worthy Park distillate from about 2010 or so, aged three to five years in american white oak casks, with an unknown (said to be limited but….) outturn dribbled into our glasses at a milquetoast 40%.

Since WP have a very recognizable branding scheme of their own, who released the rum? It’s found on the label, and it’s Bacardi, who evidently felt there was a market opportunity to go upscale and use their massive distribution network and marketing clout to steal a march on the independent bottlers who have pioneered limited bottlings in the last decade. I say “evidently”, because clearly they simply saw margins and profits, grandly called the new line a “breakthrough, contemporary innovation in the rum category” — but learned nothing about what actually made such rums special: things like serious barrel selection, serious ageing, serious strength, limited outturn, combined with a real and patiently garnered reputation for quality at the top end of the rum ladder. Just because you slap a Jamaican distillery name on a label does not mean you instantly have a great juice, as they have belatedly realized by the way this rum sank pretty much without a trace.

Which in 2019, four years after its release, I thought was odd…but only initially.  I say that because at first I quite liked the way it nosed. It was very much a WP rum, dry, fruity, rich, salty, with some olives bouncing around. Sweeter, fruitier notes emerged with time, fanta and coca cola and orange peel, and there was some background of smoke and leather as well. I jotted down that it was nicely pungent for a 40% rum. Understated but recognizable. So, thus far, not bad at all.

Trying it physically, I can only assume that whoever put the final blend together must have been scared witless and sh*tless by the sheer crisp uniqueness of Worthy Park’s pot still distillate, so much at odds with the gentle ease of Cuban-style rons – and decided, therefore, it could not possibly be allowed to stand on its own but be added to to make it more…well, palatable, I guess. Better for Bacardi drinkers. And therefore added caramel or sugar or whatever, to the tune of 15 g/L.  And you could sense that when tasting it – it was, first of all, much fainter than one might expect from such a good nose. The dryness went AWOL, and instead of leading off with crisp citrus and brine, what we got was a sort of muted fruitiness, damped-down acetones, sour tobacco and polish, and a more soft and smooth and creamy taste. This was not unpleasant, but it did deviate from what we want — and hope we’re buying — in a Worthy Park rum. Moreover, though a half hour later I could sense apples, grapes, and unripe peaches, it was too muffled, and unbalanced at the back end, presenting both a kind of spiteful sharpness as well as a muddled mishmash of tastes confused and roiled by the additives, leading to a finish that was short and sharp — a kinda dreary and near-tasteless alcohol.

Overall, it’s unclear what Bacardi thought they were doing, acting as an independent bottler when they’ve always been primary producers who have their own ideas on how to make rums; with expertise in light rons, the clear-cut singularity of single (or a few) barrel selection from Jamaica does not seem to be their forte.  I’ve been passing Single Cane rums in many airports of the world for years but the 40% always put me off until finally I got one, this one…and kinda wished I hadn’t bothered.  It’s not a particularly good rum, a barely average product released at a strength that does little to showcase or capitalize on the unique heritage of its estate of origin. As a beginner’s rum it works to introduce Worthy Park, but my advice is to move beyond it to the real stuff from Jamaica as fast as possible, without wasting further time on the false promises of such an adulterated siren that treats its audience with contempt and cynically trades on a name without providing anything of its quality.

(#662)(78/100)


Other notes

  • Bacardi bought bulk rum directly from Worthy Park, and it was aged at WP. but they did their own blending.
  • The 15g/L additives number comes from the Fat Rum Pirate’s equally dismissive review of the same rum
Apr 122017
 

Rumaniacs Review #033 | 0433

The Facundo rum series from Bacardi which was launched in 2013, is an attempt by the company to insert itself into the premium market with a series of aged blended rums.  Strictly speaking, it’s not a true Rumaniac vintage (the idea is to write about old stuff that isn’t actually in production any longer), but every now and then a more current expression slips through the cracks without having gone through the process of being recalled only by the elderly, filtered through their fond recollections of where they had been when they first tried it.  You know how it is – when you can’t get the vile crap you had in your younger years any longer, it grows in the memory, somehow getting better each time.

The Paraiso is the top end of the four expressions released under the brand (Neo, Eximo and Exquisito are the others) containing various rums aged up to 23 years, finished in old cognac barrels and is priced to match, though one wonders how much of that is the bottle and enclosure rather than the rum itself.  And of course there’s all the old marketing blather about jealously guarded, never-before-seen, private stocks and family casks meant only for visiting royalty, not the ignoble peasantry.

Colour – red-amber

Strength – 40%

Nose – Briny, soft and mildly fruity, with almonds and vanilla. Some toblerone and a whiff of tobacco. Herbal, grassy notes, and oak, and exactly two grapes. Sweet and light and too damned faint.  Not sure what’s stopping them from boosting it to maybe 45%.

Palate – It may be a blend of old rums, but I think it hews too closely to the formula represented in its downmarket mega-selling cousins.  The thing is too light and too weak in both mouthfeel and taste – there’s no assertiveness here. Caramel (weak). Pears and another two grapes (weak). Alcohol (weak). Vanilla (some). Almonds, oak, breakfast spices (almost nonexistent).  Sugar (too much – I read it has 15-20 g/L when doing my research after the tasting, so now I know why).  Plus, all these flavours blend into each other so it’s just a smooth butter-caramel-vanilla ice cream melange at best.  Did I mention I thought it was too sweet?

Finish – Short, kind of expected at 40%. One last grape. Halwa and Turkish delight (seriously). That is not entirely a recommendation.

Thoughts – Unless you’re a fan of light, easy sipping rums from Cuba (or in that style), and are prepared to drop north of £200, I’d suggest passing on it.  It’s not, as the website suggests, “possibly the finest rum ever sipped,” not even close. Still, the presentation is excellent, and for its strength it has a few pleasant notes — but pleasant is not what we want in something bugled to be this old and this expensive: we want a challenge, a blast from the past, something majestic.  This isn’t it, and frankly, it just annoys me. There’s more and better out there at a lesser price from the same island.

(75/100)

Other Rumaniacs were quite irritated with the rum as well, and their reviews can be found here on the Rumaniacs website.

Dec 272016
 

Rumaniacs Review 027 | 0427

Bacardi has had so many iterations of their rums over the decades, made in Mexico, Puerto Rico or Bermuda (or wherever else they squirrel away production these days), that it’s impossible to state with precision what the genuine article actually is any longer. This version clearly states on the label it was a Puerto Rican rum, six years old, imported into Italy, and I’ve been informed its was made and acquired in the 1980s.  Perhaps it was a forerunner, an experiment, to see whether aged rum sales held promise, and afterwards morphed into the current 8 year old (which isn’t half bad)

Colour – Gold

Strength – 40%

Nose – Dry, almost dusty, very light, grassy and gradually fruity, something vaguely reminiscent of the Alfred Lamb Special Reserve 1949. The fruits are less sweet and more tart – guavas, Thai mangoes yellowed but not soft, unripe pears, with a nearly imperceptible background of flowers and nail polish.

Palate – Light and fresh, yes, perhaps too much so – there’s almost nothing to report, everything has been diluted and dulled down and dampened to the point of nonexistence.  It’s got alcohol, so there’s that, I suppose.  Oak, too much, because there’s too little to balance off against it. Adding water would do no good except to drown it and make what few flavours there were expire without a murmur. Even after half an hour, it evinced little more than the profile of sugar cane juice (without any syrupiness) in which someone mixed some caramel, grapes, vanilla and a lily or two…maybe that was for the funeral, which of course would be in an oak casket.

Finish – Gone so fast it would make The Flash weep with envy.  Again, too faint and vague to appeal – oak dominant, held somewhat in check with clean final scents of half a vanilla stick , a half-hearted squeeze of citrus, one grape and a flower petal.

Thoughts – Perhaps it’s wrong to bring a modern sensibility to a rum made for drinkers from thirty years ago, where Scotch was The Man, vodka was ascendant, cocktails were king and the term “sipping rum” was considered an oxymoron.  Whatever.  It showcases all the current strengths and weaknesses of the brand – column still light rum for easy drinking and mixing, probably at an easy price. The best thing I can say about it is that it’s clean and clear, and better than some modern (and more upscale) Bacardi products.

(77/100)

NB – other Rumaniacs’ reviews of this rum (if any) can be found here.

May 162016
 

bacardi-oro-gold-1970s-rum-001Rumaniacs Review 022 | 0422

On the surface, rums like this one remind one how long Bacardi has been around (as if we could forget);  the Superior has also had a long history – I found a photo dating back to the 1930s.  This one is of more recent vintage, the 1970s, and made in the Bahamas (and that’s where I’ll tag it).  Other versions of this rum were made in Trinidad and Cuba, some white, some not.  The labelling of “Carta de Oro” and “Añejo” and the colour, however, makes this a lightly aged product, less than five years old I’d say, based on taste.

Colour – hay blonde

Strength – 40%

Nose – As light as the morning sunshine on a winter day, so lacking in anything resembling strength I wonder if my sample was mislabelled and it was actually 37.5%. It’s right on the edge of vanishing in a stiff breeze: vanilla, citrus peel, some really weak watermelon and papayas, with the vaguest hint of something unidentifiably tart over the horizon.

Palate – Mild, thin, watery, weak, wussy, bland, feeble, insipid, lifeless.  You can swallow this whole, no problem. The idea of adding water to the rum is an exercise in redundancy. After ten minutes or so one can sense sugar water, light lemon zest, brine, pears, cucumber, and if water had a smell, lots of that.  It barely registers as a rum, though some faint rummy-ness manages to make it out if you search for it.

Finish – Short, vague, here now, gone a second later. Couldn’t sense anything beyond some heat, a little brine and vanilla and (again) light lemon.

Thoughts – This might have been a cocktail mixer back in the day, or a digestif of some kind.  Chuck a lemon and some soda in there (or the perennial coke) and you’d be okay.  As a rum to stand alone, it falls down stone dead without even a feeble twitch.  Maybe I’m bringing a modern sensibility to a rum from Ago, and not taking into account the lighter Spanish style so in vogue in those days: but if Kinloch can produce a Guyanese rum around the same time that could tear all thirty volumes of Encyclopedia Brittanica in half at once, I don’t know what was stopping Bacardi.

(72/100)

Nov 062014
 

D3S_9071

Don’t bash the bat until you’ve given this rum a fair shot.  Because it’s damned good.

Many – myself among them – believe that one of Bacardi’s more unappreciated rums is the 8-year-old, and I’d argue the Reserva Limitada joins the club…and even dials it up a few notches.

The company may sell more rum than anyone else, has enormous (and heavily criticized) tax breaks and subsidies to keep its costs down, is a global juggernaut of the entry-level rums, but at the upper end of the scale has a real bad rep with rum lovers who just disdain it. So if Bacardi wanted to break into the rarefied realms of stratospherically-priced premium rums lovingly issued by craft bottlers, they did well with this one.  And yet, many who taste this rum will express their “surprise,” and how “unexpected” it is.  But it shouldn’t be: one can’t be in the rum making business for over a hundred years and not pick up something, right.  The real mystery is what took so damned long, and why they can’t do better, more often.

D3S_9072Still,  let’s just move away from any preconceptions we might have regarding the brand, and simply address what I tasted that day: a dark amber rum in a standard bottle (I didn’t see a box, but a quick search confirms it comes with one) bottled at — what is now, for me — a mild 40%. (Interestingly enough, while I meant it when I said dark amber, some photographs online suggest a lighter colour, almost honey-like).  The nose demonstrated a solid, creamy nose of coconut, some fruit, burnt sugar, even nougat… and a touch of mischief thrown in via a flirt of lemon peel.  Some clove and cinnamon danced around there after opening up.  It was well done: there was nothing truly exciting or freakishly adventurous about it — it probably wouldn’t be a Bacardi if it exhibited such traits — just above-average quality.

Same for the taste. Soft, smooth, sweet, it was a baby’s drowsy kiss to your palate.  It was a really good melange of coconut shavings, banana, almonds, caramel, raisins, honey, some allspice and cinnamon; even some freshly baked bread.  Barely any smoke and leather or tannins from the ageing. I’m hoping that they didn’t cram sugar into the thing to smoothen it out – that would be a real shame (yet I can’t rid myself of the thought). The mouthfeel at 40% held to that unwarlike temper to which I had become accustomed in my recent enjoyable battles with full-proofs – gentle and easygoing, almost creamy, with merely a nip of the alcohol bite, far from unpleasant.  As for the fade, pretty decent for a milquetoast offering – soft and lasting, with all those rich scents taking their bow before departing.

 

Bacardi does this so very well: they don’t seek the edge of the envelope, they don’t shoot for the stars, they don’t go off the reservation.  They simply, day in and day out, make rums that are a slight cut above the ordinary for their age, type and price point. Okay, the cost for this rum is pushing it for the masses that drink and move the brand by the tankerload, yet it must be conceded that it’s being marketed as a premium rum, and so perhaps a different audience is being sought.

D3S_9071-001This rum apparently hailed from stocks which were reserved for the founder’s family, and were released rarely – commercial production began in 2003, and one supposedly had to go to Puerto Rico to get any, up until 2010 when it began to be released more widely.  Varying online sources mention that the age of the blends comprising the rum is 12-18 years and averaged 16 years (one noted that this average is now 12 years, another said 15) and aged in lightly charred American oak.  The 2010 press release noted 10-16 years. I found it enormously irritating that the Bacardi website itself didn’t mention a damned thing about it. What does it say about a marketing strategy in today’s world, that you get the most information from re-sellers, online shops and hobby sites, rather than from the actual manufacturers?

In the end, whatever the background material (or lack of it) says, I think Bacardi’s Reserva Limitada is neither a cult object, nor a brave miss nor even a “flawed masterpiece”.  It is, simply, a solidly excellent rum, well made, carefully put together, showing real care and attention —  I enjoyed it a lot. And if it is, at 40%, a little to weak for my own personal taste these days, it sure won’t let down legions of its drinkers, who might just be encouraged by this review to pony up the coin which the bottle will cost them – or at least for the cost of a shot in a bar somewhere.  In that case, I honestly don’t think they’ll be disappointed.

(#187 / 87/100)


Other notes

  • Bacardi’s strategy mystifies me.  The rum is a blend limited to 8,000 bottles per year, which many boutique makers would be proud to issue: and as noted, it’s a very good rum, great for sipping. My question is, why blend it at all?  Why not issue an age-specific or even a year-specific rum and ratchet up the advertising to tout its uniqueness?  What’s with the anaemic 40% – this thing could easily be a shade stronger and deliver more punch. And then really earn its “premium” cachet.
  • Update, March 2017 – Interesting how things develop. I looked at this rum again in passing last week as I was comparing a number of others in Berlin.  In just three years, it’s sunk in my estimation.  Blind, I scored it 78 on this go-around, and it was largely because of my tastes gravitating towards pure pot still rums, and because of the 40%.  It’s still a decent rum and beats out the Paraiso…but is left way behind, by all the amazing rums that have emerged since that time when I first tried it.

 

Dec 032010
 

First posted December 3rd, 2010 on Liquorature

Bacardi Black is a deep, dark rich mixer’s drink just the right side of sweet enough, but lacks the cojones to be a decent sipper on its own merits. 

The mainstays of Bacardi’s massive sales are, to my mind, the low-enders: those rums not good enough to stand on their own, but which have a bold taste, a decent body and – somewhat like Johnny Walker – sufficient overall quality to be a cut above the average.  The normal Joe who walks into a liquor store isn’t after all, looking for a life-changing experience: he’s looking for a decent drink at a good price that won’t make him void his bowels, lose his sight and tie his alimentary canal up into a complex knot.

Such a rum is the Bacardi Black, which I will tell you right out, is not a sipping rum by any stretch of the imagination (unless you like low enders to sip and cause you pain) but will liven up any drink you make with it. It’s a cocktail base, pure and simple, and should be treated as such and I must be equally honest and tell you it’s one of the better ones out there at its price point (less than $30 for 750ml). I should also point out, however that the Black is no longer available as the Black since it has now been replaced as the Bacardi Select rum. Dunno what difference there is between the two.

You can almost always tell tipple for the masses: with a very few exceptions, almost no care is taken tartin’ ‘er up, and this is no exception.  Tin foil cap.  Cheap label with bare minimum of facts.  A reekingly pungent nose that only reluctantly releases its claws and puffs a grudging fart of caramel into your face like a baby’s bum at the exact wrong time. A thin little toot, you understand…the Black is not a heavy dark rum.  But to some extent you are compensated by a transformation of the initial caramel whiff into light cinnamon, some bonbons, and a weakly burnt-wood belch.

The body is, as I say, not for sipping.  A tad on the thin side, tasting of oak and caramel, some vanilla and maybe nuts.  But oddly, for a rum this dark, there is a lack of boldness and assertiveness, a lack of sweet, that’s somewhat at odds with its aggressive styling and bold dark looks: it’s as if Will Smith turned into a wuss, or something.  And that finish: ugh. Lousy. Hobbesian, truth be told – nasty, brutish and short.

I know I’m making a case that this is just another piece of dreck.  But it’s not, really – it’s just not meant to be had neat (and my apologies to all of you who have tried it that way and liked it – but you need to trade up). As a mixer in cocktails it’s actually really good….its weaknesses are compensated for by whatever we chose to add to it.

Bacardi’s 20 million cases of annual sales are more than just a question of a stable of brands or a favourable tariff regime with the US.  They have simply, and for generations, made a damn fine series of rums.  What they lack in uber-quality and premium labelling (they have nothing to even breathe upon the Appleton 30 or DDL’s aged offerings), they make up for in volume of decently distilled spirits that appeal widely because of both their overall quality (sold cheaply) and their ubiquity.

I’ve found Bacardis the world over and always affordable, almost always better than the local hooch. They’re good enough and affordable enough, which sheds a clear light on their marketing philosophy. By eschewing top-end and exclusive premium rums and concentrating on making a series of excellent mid- and low-tier products – like the Black and the Gold – Bacardi have essentially created what every manufacturer dreams of making just once and then selling a jillion.  Simply put, with the Black and its like, Bacardi have made the Model T of rums.

(#054. 77/100) ⭐⭐⭐


Other Notes

  • The “Black” in the title refers to the colour, of course.  I have read different accounts as to how that is achieved – one story says it’s because of heavily charred barrels and then filtered through more charcoal, another other says it’s liberal use of E150 caramel colouring, and third says a bit of both.
  • According to Rum Ratings and this reference, the rum name has now been discontinued, and the same rum is referred to as “Bacardi Select”. The exact year is unclear, since I picked up this bottle in 2010 but BilgeMunky had already noted the change in his review of the Select in 2007. Since the Select does not appear in Bacardi’s catalogue as of 2021 (when I checked again), I assume that it has been rebranded once more, this time as the “Cuatro.” Nothing else in the lineup qualifies, and the fact that the blends making up the rum are aged a minimum of four years suggest this – however, I accept that the Select might simply have been replaced altogether with a new blend that is not using charred barrels quite as much.
Nov 272010
 

First Posted 27 Nov 2010 on Liquorature

A pleasant mixer but not worth it as a sipper…like a date you want to kiss but really aren’t sure you want to bring home just yet.

I’m at a loss to say what Bacardi 1873 is, based on what I’m reading.  Research is maddeningly inconclusive: is it a solera, as some bottles advertise themselves to be, or a standard blend of some kind?  Some sources suggest that it’s an aged blend that has now been replaced by the eight year old.  I hesitate to commit myself to any of these positions, because while I can tell my bottle is definitely not marked as a solera (that is usually clearly identified as such on the bottle, and the one I sampled makes no mention of it), I can’t ascertain anything else.

It would also appear that the few rum reviews out there are at odds on whether it is discontinued or not, and if so, replaced by what.  Bacardi’s own (woefully inadequate) website is hardly a fount of information on the matter and thus far they have ignored my inquiries. On the other hand, Chip Dykstra of the Rum Howler Blog was as helpful as ever, and responded that while the 1873 started life as a Solera made in Puerto Rico, production was subsequently moved to Mexico and the specialized solera method was discontinued.

Faced with this dilemma, a reviewer does what he can: he directs an inquiry at the distiller, does as careful a tasting as he is able, and puts a picture of the bottle up to ensure that readers know precisely what they’re reading a review of.  And this is what I’ve attempted to do.

Price wise, nothing to say. About $35.  Bottle, not the rounded shape of the standard Bacardi’s like Black, Gold or White, but more squared off.  Cap is a cheap crap tinfoil press-on.  I won’t go so far as to say these initial indications denote low-end, but it does seem to be trending that way.  On the other hand, I like the rich and deep amber-gold colour of the rum as the light strikes it (something I’ve attempted to show in the picture I took).

Working on the assumption that this is a blend, the trick is to see if a decent tasting can suggest, with a fair degree of assurance, whether it’s an old or young one running up the spine.

On those nose, there is a surprising lack of any kind of spirit burn on the initial sniff, just soft vanilla notes wrapped around a caramel and burnt sugar core. There is a hint of oaken tannins on the back end which suggest some level of ageing, but it’s impossible to say how much: the relatively simple nose doesn’t lend itself much to dissection.  I need to mention, though, that after I left my glass to stand for a bit, a sly citrus hint came sliding out of the softer background of vanilla.

The palate confirmed the overall lack of complexity the nose had suggested.  The body of the 1873 was lighter than I expected for something of this copper-brown/amber coloured hue; and slightly sweet without overpowering you with sugar, and a shade dry (not as much as the Bermudez, however). The rum is spicy, packing a light stinging burn on the tongue, yet perseverance elicits the taste of dried fruits as well, the non-sweet kind, like dates, perhaps; this last is very faint and is no more than a light impression. As for the finish, it’s short and sharp, and the medicinal fumes which thus far escaped you are back to claw their way up your throat and spoil what so far had been an unremarkable, but also not particularly bad, rum.

I’m really not impressed with the 1873 on its own – this one seems to be tailor made for a cocktail base of some kind, and indeed, as a mixer with the usual suspects, I really enjoyed it. I believe it to be a blend of rums aged no more than five years. As a sort of general product, it doesn’t try to be any one thing, but too many, and there we may have hit on the reason for its lack of success with me.  The makers never got around to hanging their hat on any kind of flavour profile, while trying to please everyone: that marks it out as a low-ender, to my mind.

I sometimes wonder how much rum-lovers’ tastes the world over are formed from early exposure to the best selling rum in the world.  When  you think about it, drinkers who start with scotch appreciate the drier, not so sweet variations that hark back to whisky and cognac, while also liking the sweeter, more full-bodied stuff; but drinkers who began with Bacardi and never strayed from the true faith tend to like the former somewhat less, and concentrate their love on the latter. This private theory of mine is anecdotal at best, but who knows.

Be that as it may, Bacardi 1873 is a pleasant blend of no great sophistication, and sports its youthful physique and unpretentious nature like any teenager that ever lived but fails on the finish line. It’s main selling point might be that it’s a cut above the black and gold variations, and works exceedingly well as a mixer. For some, it might work as a low-end, none too stellar sipper (something like the El Dorado 5 yr or English Harbour 5 yr)…not for me, though.

(#049)(73.5/100) ⭐⭐½

Oct 012010
 

First published 01 October 2010 on Liquorature.

This deep-throated bellowing maniac of a rum does almost nothing well – but one thing so grandly it borders on Van Gogh-level insanity: it hits you in the face.  A lot.  Welcome to the lost week of your life.

Even in the world of lesser rums, there is such a thing as subtlety…a whiff of class, or style, be it ever so humble. Bacardi, with this 151 proof beefcake, sneered long and loudly and stated flat out that they wanted no truck with that kind of pansy nonsense.  They stayed as far away from the notion of class as they could, and made a popskull that reminds you of nothing so much as the liquid equivalent of a Tarantino movie, or a permanently pissed off ex-spouse packing an Uzi in either hand. The rum acts like Bacardi decided to build some kind of high test which jet engines can run on and set altitude records. It’s as if they let some mad scientist out of their chemistry lab and he went ape while unsupervised.

Bacardi 151 is absolutely not a for the weak. If you’re merely average, then make your will, alert your relatives that the possible cost of long term health care will be theirs, and ensure the insurance is paid up.  Kiss your significant other tenderly one last time. If you’re still single, well, you may be in luck, ‘cause after a shot or ten of this massive ethanol delivery system, you will think just about any girl and maybe even the neighbor’s dog is fair game. And I have to state up front: with a rum this powerful, clear health advisories are in order.  Do not drink while smoking, or when camping out and stoking the fire.  The 151 is as flammable as hell: giving vent to a loud fart or indulging your propensity to bloviate may leave you as a rapidly decomposing burnt amoebic mess on the floor.

Because Bacardi 151 is quite simply, nuts.  It blows out your sniffing nose at 500 hp and 8000 rpm, and when you’ve recovered breath, rediscovered your voice and stopped crying like a little girl, it thunders down your throat with a tonsil-ripping 600 ft-lbs of torque.  Zero to drunk arrives in 2.5 shots – yeah, go ahead, try it – and that figure is only marginally exaggerated.  Generations of insects will expire on your exhale, and professional flamethrowers will avoid you like the plague.  Other drunks at the bar will only vaguely remember seeing a flash of alcohol fumes as your sobriety disappears over the horizon in a cloud of vaporized rum.

In between the waves of spirit and ethanol burns waft tantalizing hints of something warm and caramel like. Hey, if you don’t mind some suffering and try a second sniff or a real taste, you can probably pick out the molasses and the burnt sugar, plus – and I’m reaching here – vanilla (I was comforting my throat with EH25 and weeping into my wife’s shoulder a the time so my memories are a little hazy).  But these are like bunny rabbits in a cane field of jaguars and have about as much chance: the 151 swiftly, efficiently and mercilessly hunts them down, eviscerates them with sharp ethanol claws and has them for lunch. You only think you noticed such warm and comforting scents and tastes before reality invades your fantasy and you are ravaged yet again.

Bacardi’s makers took a rum aged a minimum of one year, snickered into their mustaches, and distilled it to a whopping 75.5%. At that strength, it’s kind of irrelevant what kind of barrels they age it in…they could age it in my son’s potty with a diaper floating in it, and the next morning both diaper and potty would be gone. That also makes it one of a select few overproofs in the world today: their own 151 Dark, or the Stroh 80Sunset Very Strong, the SMWS Longpond 9 year old 81.3% or poorer bastard cousins like the Wray & Nephew White Overproof (a mild 63%) or the Stroh 54 (at which you can just see Bacardi laughing hysterically whenever they name it).  The company can, of course, indulge itself in such cheerfully infantile pursuits – selling more rum than just about every nation on the planet allows it to pretty much create anything they feel like.

Making this one, they may not have attempted to create a superrum. But for my money, they sure as hell gave birth to a rum like few others. Which probably means that, as with other overporoofs like the Stroh 80, you’re more likely to run out of bar patrons than a bottle of this stuff – or cojones, or whatever other words the Puerto Ricans use for “courageously stupid.”  It’s not quite my thing and I’m not masochistic enough to try 151 on a consistent basis, however grudging an affection I may have for it: but that this rum exists at all is reason enough to admire it.

(#037. Unscored)


Other Notes

  • The Bacardi 151 rum was discontinued in 2016 because health and safety issues (stupid people using it for stupid reasons) — this kept Bacardi in near constant litigation and finally they just got fed up and pulled the plug, though of course it remains available to be found on auctions and secondary markets to this day. Buzzfeed carried a humorous retrospective.
  • This rum started a train of thought that culminated in a deep dive into the History of the 151 rums that was posted in 2020 (I had a more detailed section on Bacardi than this review allows), and a place of sorts in the list of Strongest Rums in the World, as part of the 151s entry.

Opinion

[August 2021] Aside from being one of the strongest rums I had ever tried, and written about, the review here was and remains important (or at least, it marks a milestone of sorts) for one other reason: it was written almost entirely with a sense of humour lacking in the 36 reviews that preceded it. Those had the occasional funny sentence or witty phrase as part of the review, but in the main, they were pretty standard and sober little essays.  Here, for the first time, I just let myself go from start to finish, and laughed my way through the whole thing, enjoying the writing process thoroughly.  It was worth it for that alone, I think.

But the reactions of readers over the years has been uniformly positive, and demonstrated that one need not be a dry, serious, punctilious, pedantic writer all the time. One can simply enjoy the writing, the expression and the laughs (and isn’t that what rum is all about too?).  And what that did was allow me, thereafter, the freedom to explore other modes of expression in writing reviews, whether serious, or lighthearted, using a first person narrative, a conversational tone, or even adding a biblical flavour. I may be in the minority on this one, but I think it made the overall body of work a lot richer and more enjoyable for average readers.


 

Sep 172010
 

 

Picture (c) RumCorner.dk

First posted 17 September 2010 on Liquorature

A tentative foray, a single spy, sent into the camp of the premium rums, perhaps to scout out the territory for further invasions to come (we can hope).  Capture one and be surprised by its low price and overall quality. If Bacardi can make this one, I don’t know why they don’t come charging into the high-end market in force.

***

Maybe it’s just me, but I sometimes find stronger notes and more positive tastes at the middle and lower end of the price and snoot scale;  more premium rated rums can get their cachet from age statements, distillery snobbery and the supposed excellence and uniqueness of their maturation process…but don’t consistently please (or awe) the drinker any more than a regular rum could (sometimes even less). A lesson that does not seem to have been lost on the subject of this review: the 8 year old Bacardi.

Observe this brand.  It’s the best selling rum in the world.  It smartly moved its operations to Puerto Rico and then to Mexico in the pre-WW2 years to take advantage of favourable tariff regimes with the US, and created a marketing campaign which made it the pre-eminent tropical drink of its time.  A series of extremely capable family members (some of them in-laws) kept the voting shares and quality control up to scratch into the modern era.  And yet, it is considered fashionable today to bash the brand for its commonality and staid middle-of-the-roadishness.

Part of that is its utility.  The damned thing can be used for anything.  You can cook with it, drink it, mix it, use it as a base, an ingredient or a mixer. It has no real character except its lack of one.  It’s bland.  It’s like the a ’40s jeep or ’50s Land Rover or ’70s Toyota.  It’s the faceless English banker, the anonymous Japanese salaryman  of rums. It is, succinctly put, often seen as boring. But my lord, does it ever sell. The gold, the black, the white…they can be found everywhere

The 8-year old is something else again. Bacardi blends for the most part, but they’ve taken the time to put together this tawny golden blend of rums aged eight to sixteen years old and aged in used white oak barrels that once held sherry.  This might account for a softer and more candied nose than one might expect from what could be seen as just another young rum. It’s a tad sharp, yet not so medicinal as others I’ve had.  I’ve always meant to try it for that alone.

Tasting is a surprising delight: the slight sting to the nose disappears entirely, and a body of some substance makes sipping this without ice a definite must-try. It’s not as sweet as other rums, and the arrival on the throat is more like a dry, rich brandy, or the Bruichladdich Renegade rums.  It’s got a solid flavour profile, with traces of vanilla, nutmeg and light fruity undertones, perhaps peaches.  More to the point, it has real body, not some kind of anorexic thinness reminiscent of its cheaper cousins further down the scale.  And the finish is excellent, with a slow deep burn, not a sting: this rum is more like a decent whisky, I judge, with just enough sugar in it to keep me liking it.  A lot. I’d sip it straight with no problems, on ice without doubt, and as a mixer in any situation.

Bacardi 8 does not try for superiority (although the packaging is quite decent for its price and age…I particularly liked the cork stopper). It really is a good mid ranger, and in its own way, defines what a good rum could be if it doesn’t hanker after any kind of pretentiousness.  A superstar it’ll never be: as an all rounder, it may be one of those undiscovered steals that those who patronize the low-end rums feel is a find all their own, and they’d be right to think so. You wouldn’t be wasting your thirty-plus bucks if you dropped them on this quietly impressive product.

(#0053)(Unscored)


Other Notes

  • In 2017 the Bacardi 8 Year Old reviewed here was rebranded as the “Ocho” to line up with the “Quattro” and “Diez”. The blend supposedly remains the same.