Phraya “Deep Matured” Aged Thailand Rum – Review

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Mar 162026
 

The top end release of the Phraya triptych of aged rums that is released by Sang Som distillery in Thailand clearly seeks to dominate the premium aged rum space in Asia, and proudly boasts of the 8 gold medals it has won in various spirits competitions from 2012 to 2024. The bottle is handsome to a fault, the backstory is cute, the wording evokes interest, the price is high enough to suggest exclusivity, and the website is really pretty, with lots of nice photos and words.

Unfortunately, when we take all this apart, what remains is somewhat less than the sum of its parts. And that’s a shame for their premium edition, the so called “Deep Matured” Gold Rum since one is left with a vague feeling that more could have been attempted.  I tried all three of Phraya’s rums (Elements, Elements 8YO and this one) at the same time for over a few hours, and feel that this one rum may suffer most from not exceeding the expectations engendered by the presentation and marketing materials.

The production notes aren’t significantly different for any of these rums: age seems to be the only differential, and this is where perhaps more information rather than market-speak would have made a difference to our perceptions. Molasses made from local Thai cane, short fermentation, multi-column-still distillation, and then ageing in charred ex bourbon barrels for 7-12 years (the words “deep matured” have no meaning at all beyond being evocative), and bottled at 40%. 

Nose first: it’s clean and dry, even crisp, giving rise to scents of flambeed bananas, caramel, coffee grounds, toffee, salted dark chocolate, mocha and almonds – in fact the nuttiness is the clearest differentiator between this and the other two. Some overripe fruit, honey, coconut shavings, and there’s a whiff of oaken tannins and leather, perhaps some smoke to round things off. It’s rounded and soft, quite easy to sniff.

This soft roundness persists when you taste it. That’s not entirely a good thing: sure, we can taste leather, smoke, bananas, brown sugar, crushed almonds and cashews, vanilla, plus some cardamom and cloves. That part is nice, because it adds to the relative blandness of the other two rums in the lineup. What’s missing is a little balance that some lighter, crisper citrus would have brought to the party – there’s some fruit, sure, but it’s all overripe soft flavours – squishy mangoes, overripe pineapples, plums…nothing that gives it any kind of edge. Now, this makes it go down easy, and the finish repeats many of the same notes, yet all it does is make it a relatively unadventurous, soft sipping rum that doesn’t dare much and goes nowhere fast.

Some of the fault for this lies in the strength – I confess to feeling some impatience with that 40%. We’re in 2026 now, and you would think that anyone paying attention and reading the tea leaves would up the oomph on their top end rums by at least a point or five, yet no, Sang Som stayed stubbornly stuck at living room strength. Maybe that was for tax or export purposes, but you know what? I don’t care – because at the top of the company scale, one expects something different, better, more intriguing: a bit more bite and serrations, not an incremental improvement from the lower editions.

So, I’m disappointed. The rum is not precisely insipid – like the much derided Millonario rums from Rum Nation, there’s rather more under the hood than appears at first sip; yet it leaves us wishing for more, somehow, something that would excite our interest, tickle our noses and challenge our palates. Decent as it is, the Phraya Gold rum ends up being  just another middle aged rum that tries to use slick presentation to sell something that could have been better.

(#1142)(82/100) (⭐⭐⭐½)

Opinion – Phraya rums generally.

So with this review I looked at the range of Sang Som’s upscale offerings, and must concede that for now, it’s a muted sound and fury signifying very little, sorry. As with all rums that are made for different parts of the world and different cultures, I should be careful in that assessment, however, since what may not work for me will certainly work elsewhere (as the size of the company attests, they do have their market)

This leads me to wonder exactly who the rum is meant for.  Back in 2024 Phraya (or Sangsom Distillery, its owner) was starting to pop up on the western festival circuit, but the company’s rums had been available for years before that and made nary a splash. Even now they don’t, in spite of all the flash and glitter I mentioned in my opening blurb.

I have a feeling that the main market remains Asia, where such easy rums have a much longer and stronger tradition. If you were to gather a few mass market rums from there – Old Monk, Amrut’s stuff, Mekhong, Tanduay are some examples – you see the sort of similarity that perhaps is the reason they sell like crazy… but mostly there. This similarity is where I believe that such companies should tweak their production a little more to make them stand out and maybe differentiate themselves enough to go global. Granted, breaking into the major non-Asian markets, no matter where, may feel like a thankless task given the obstacles and regulations – but perhaps if they were to come up with something more original and more unique, while never entirely losing their local style… well, maybe we’d feel more positive about taking a flyer on a fifty-quid rum.

Other notes

  • Video recap link
  • Sang Som distillery was founded in 1977, and is supposed to be the oldest in Thailand.  It is located in Nakhon Pathom province, which is just to the west of the capital, Bangkok.
  • That Rum Drinker and The Fat Rum Pirate both rated it the equivalent of 4 stars out of 10, which is about 70 points on my scale.
  • The Phraya brand was first established in 2011 by Sang Som Distillery, itself owned by the spirits conglomerate known as ThaiBev. The name derives from a old time title of Thai nobility and can still be found in other contexts, such as the Chao Phraya river that runs through Bangkok. In the brand lineup, there are three different editions: the “Elements” standard edition, the Elements 8YO, and then this premium release, the impressively named “Phraya Double Matured Gold Rum”, which is a blend of 7-12YO rums.
  • “Elements” is pretty much a branding and marketing term, and refers to the four ancient elements of reality – fire, air, earth and water – which impact the making of rum. Me, I think it’s occasionally something of a stretch, but ok. The important thing to note is that the rum derives from molasses made from Thai sugar cane, has a short fermentation time, is run through a multi-column still, then aged in charred ex-Bourbon barrels. The barrels are apparently stored next to a series of lagoons that (according to the company website) cool the ambient temperature and somewhat retard the tropical ageing process.

Phraya “Elements” 8YO Thailand Rum – Review

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Mar 132026
 

In a previous review I looked at the entry level Phraya aged rum from Thailand, called “Elements”, and this one is not too far distanced from that one, except in so far that it has a definitive age statement – 8 years. However, it is an ongoing blended rum, so there is not a year of distillation or bottling to be found anywhere – and, as the brand rep at the German Rum Festival remarked to me, it is a relatively new product, having been introduced in 2023, almost a decade after the original edition came to market. Clearly, then, the original “Elements” sold well enough to warrant something a bit more upscale.

Production details remain the same: molasses from local sugar, short fermentation time, column still distillation, aged in charred ex-bourbon barrels, released at standard strength (40%). In that sense it is something of a Cuban / Latin / Spanish style rum, though I see little evidence of a set of white haired old maestros roneros standing around like old bull elephants at a watering hole, tasting carefully, muttering to themselves and doing their careful blending and barrel magic, the way they do in Cuba and elsewhere.

Which leads us to the tasting notes of this eight year old rum, now that we know that age aside it’s not a thousand miles away from its predecessor. The nose is quite nice –  easy, unaggressive, rum like. It noses lightly sweet, with overripe red grapes, oranges, mangoes n the edge of going off, plus some honey, vanilla and cardamom. There’s a really faint briny and fusel oil note being hinted at, but it’s too vague to comer to grips with and disappears too fast.

The palate? Well, it’s better than the previous version, though this may be damning it with faint praise. Slightly dry, slightly sweet. Grapes, honey, coconut shavings, crushed walnuts, a hint of macha tea (weird, right?). Again, cardamom, vanilla, some dry polished leather and smoke and if there’s any bitterness from the oak it was aged in, I couldn’t spot it.  The same is true of the finish, which is short, easy, and gives little more than some light fruits, honey and, of course, the vanilla. Ho hum.

As with the original Phraya Elements, we’re looking at a decent midrange rum that yes, can be sipped, and yes it will please, and no, there’s nothing bad to say about it – my feeling is simply that like its predecessor, it breaks no new ground. Tasted blind, you wouldn’t discern any serious differences with other middling-aged rums from elsewhere. To be fair, the aromas and flavours come out cleanly and crisply, with just enough complexity to make it better than sweetened nonsense, yet simultaneously with too little of anything – intensity or originality – to make a serious statement for either itself or Thailand. Aside from its exotic location, then, I’d much rather take a Bacardi Ocho for its lesser price, and the Hampden 8YO for a more intense and better flavour profile, and if I was restricting myself to Thai rums only, well, Issan and Chalong bay would still get my bahts first.

(#1141)(81/100) (⭐⭐⭐½)

Other notes

  • Video recap link
  • Sang Som distillery was founded in 1977, and is supposed to be the oldest in Thailand.  It is located in Nakhon Pathom province, which is just to the west of the capital, Bangkok.
  • The Phraya brand was first established in 2011 by Sang Som Distillery, itself owned by the spirits conglomerate known as ThaiBev. The name derives from a old time title of Thai nobility and can still be found in other contexts, such as the Chao Phraya river that runs through Bangkok. In the brand lineup, there are three different editions: the “Elements” standard edition, the Elements 8YO (this one), and then their premium edition, the simply named “Phraya Rum”, which is a blend of 7-12YO rums.
  • “Elements” is pretty much a branding and marketing term, and refers to the four ancient elements of reality – fire, air, earth and water – which impact the making of rum. Me, I think it’s occasionally something of a stretch, but ok. The important thing to note is that the rum derives from molasses made from Thai sugar cane, has a short fermentation time, is run through a multi-column still, then aged in charred ex-Bourbon barrels for five to seven years. The barrels are apparently stored next to a series of lagoons that (according to the company website) cool the ambient temperature and somewhat retard the tropical ageing process.

Phraya “Elements” Thailand Rum – Review

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Mar 102026
 

With the release of the Shakara rum by Velier a couple of years ago, and small-distillery bottlings made by Chalong Bay and Issan, Thailand has come into the spotlight as an Asian rum producer to which we should perhaps be paying more attention. For now the rums we know about are made mostly by such small producers, because even the big guns in Asia are somewhat less known (or revered) in the west – Mekhong, Naga, Tanduay, and ThaiBev’s Sang Som are some of them.

To this stable has been added the Phraya brand, first established in 2011 by the above-mentioned Sang Som Distillery, itself owned by the spirits conglomerate known as ThaiBev. The name derives from a old time title of Thai nobility and can still be found in other contexts, such as the Chao Phraya river that runs through Bangkok. In the brand lineup, there are three different editions: the “Elements” which we are looking at today, the 8YO, and then their premium edition, the “Phraya Deep Matured Rum”, which is a blend of 7-12YO rums.

“Elements” is pretty much a branding and marketing term, and refers to the four ancient elements of reality – fire, air, earth and water – which impact the making of rum. Me, I think it’s occasionally something of a stretch, but ok. The important thing to note is that the rum derives from molasses made from Thai sugar cane, has a short fermentation time, is run through a multi-column still, then aged in charred ex-Bourbon barrels for five to seven years. The barrels  are apparently stored next to a series of lagoons that (according to the company website) cool the ambient temperature and somewhat retard the tropical ageing process.

I am not convinced that any of these aspects particularly help or hinder what in the end, is a perfectly serviceable mid range 40% ABV rum for those who aren’t ito the spirit, and not one that stands out in any significant way. The nose is pleasant: deep caramel and vanilla notes, toffee, light smokiness, underlain with black grapes, red wine, and the deep scent of overripe mangoes. There’s a touch of citrus to provide a little bite, but not much more. Sweet?  Not really.

The taste is similarly unadventurous: at standard strength we aren’t seeing much more than the nose already gave us: honey, vanilla, creme brulee, toffee, with lighter fruity notes, the vague crispness of lychees and lemon zest (and not a whole lot of that), then coconut shavings and some kind of cola. The finish is clean and light – syrup, caramel, honey, vanilla, and that’s just about it.

Of late I’ve wandered around the world and tried rums from as many countries as I can, hoping to find new and interesting products that take the spirit in interesting directions, if not actual new ones. For all its size and popularity in Asia, I’m afraid this Phraya isn’t really it – it’s on par with a young Havana Club or Bacardi, which is not surprising since the short-fermentation, column-still, barrel driven philosophy is the same for all of them. It’s a decent enough product, does not feel “sugared-up” at all, and can be had by itself, neat, as a hot-weather drink, sure. Unfortunately, that’s all it is, and any hopes we had for something a bit more off the reservation remain unfulfilled … for now.

(#1140)(79/100) (⭐⭐⭐)

Other notes

  • Video recap link
  • Sang Som distillery was founded in 1977, and is supposed to be the oldest in Thailand.  It is located in Nakhon Pathom province, which is just to the west of the capital, Bangkok.
  • Not many reviews out there.  Serge Valentin of WhiskyFun rated it 75 points.

Sang Som Special Rum (Thailand) – Review

 1 Response »
May 092019
 

Like most rums of this kind, the opinions and comments are all over the map.  Some are savagely disparaging, other more tolerant and some are almost nostalgic, conflating the rum with all the positive experiences they had in Thailand, where the rum is made. Few have had it in the west, and those that did weren’t writing much outside travel blogs and review aggregating sites.

And that’s not a surprise. If you exclude the juice emerging from new, small, fast-moving micro-distilleries in Asia, and focus on the more common brands, you’ll find that many adhere to the light latin-style column-still model of standard strength tipple…and many are not averse to adding a little something to make your experience…well, a smoother one; an easier one. These rums sell by the tanker-load to the Asian public, and while I’m sure they wouldn’t mind getting some extra sales, restrict themselves to their own region…for now.

One of these is the Thai Sang Som Special Rum, which has been around since 1977 and has supposedly garnered a 70% market share for itself in Thailand.  This is a rum made from molasses, and apparently aged for five years in charred oak barrels before being bottled at 40% ABV. Back in the 1980s it won a clutch of medals (Spain, 1982 and 1983) and again in 2006, which is prominently featured in their promo literature…yet it’s almost unknown outside Thailand, since it exports minimal quantities (< 1% of production, I’ve read).  It is made by the Sang Som company, itself a member of Thai Beverage, one of the largest spirits companies in the world (market cap ~US$15 billion) – and that company has around 18 distilleries in the region, which make most of the rum consumed in and exported by Thailand: SangSom, Mangkorn Thong, Blend 285, Hong Thong, and also the Mekhong, which I tried so many years ago on a whim.

The rum doesn’t specify, but I’m going out on a limb and saying, that this is a column still product.  I can’t say it did much for me, on any level – the nose is very thin, quite sweet, with hints of sugar cane sap, herbs, dill, rosemary, basil, chopped up and mixed into whipped cream.  Some cinnamon, rose water, vanilla, white chocolate and more cream. Depending on your viewpoint this is either extremely subtle or extremely wussy and in either case the predominance of sweet herbal notes is a cause for concern, since it isn’t natural to rum.

No redemption is to be found when tasted, alas, though to be honest I was not really expecting much here.  It’s very weak, very quiet, and at best I can suggest the word “delicate”. Some bright ripe fruits like ripe mangoes, red guavas, seed-outside cashew nuts.  Coconuts, flowers, maybe incense. Also lighter notes of sugar water, watermelon, cucumbers, cinnamon, nutmeg – Grandma Caner said “gooseberries”, but I dispute that, the tartness was too laid back for that rather assertively mouth-puckering fruit. And the finish is so light as to be to all intents and purposes, indiscernible. No heat, no bite, no final bonk to the taste buds or the nose.  Some fruit, a little soya, a bit of cream, but all in all, there’s not much going on here.

All due respect for the tourists and Asians who have no issues with a light rum and prefer their hooch to be devoid of character, this is not my cup of tea – my research showed to to be a spiced rum, which explains a lot (I didn’t know that when I was trying it).  It’s light and it’s easy and it’s delicate, and it requires exactly zero effort to drink, which is maybe why it sells so well – one is immediately ready to take another shot, real quick, just to see if the next sip can tease out all those notes that are hinted at but never quite come to the fore. The best thing you can say about the matter is that at least it doesn’t seem to be loaded to the rafters with sugar, which, however, is nowhere near enough for me to recommend it to serious rumhounds who’re looking for the next new and original thing.

(#622)(68/100)

Mekhong Thai Rum – Review

 1 Response »
May 152012
 

A gentle, easygoing underproof rum-wannabe. There’s nothing really outstanding about it, and it’s too weak to appeal to me personally: like other Asian rums, however, it does have a taste all its own, and for those who don’t like forty-or-greater percenters, this one will satisfy.

Is this a rum at all? Liquorature is littered with comments from both the purists (who disdain any additions) and the tolerant (who don’t mind), and the bone of contention between them is always the same: can a spirit be made from less than 100% cane juice, with additives for taste and profile, and still call itself an inheritor of the seafaring tradition and swishing cutlasses — a rum?

The first real lightning rod for this discussion came from the Tanduay 12 year old rum, and here is another one that is sure to reopen that argument, because the Mekhong product, named for the river running along the Thai border, clearly and boldly states its antecedents front and center: 95% cane extract, 5% from rice, plus caramel and a “secret” recipe of herbs and spices. And also – nowhere does it say it is anything but a spirit…Mekhong lays no claim to being a rum at all. So what I’m going to do is simply make these facts known, and place the rum (yes, I will call it that) in the same league as the Tuzemak and the Tanduay. Decent products, nice taste, no other place to categorize ‘em, welcome to the rum family.

Mekhong as a whole doesn’t really impress me, in spite of a few features that are a cut above average. The bottle is undistinguished, with a lurid red and yellow label that is sure to catch your attention in the local rum shelf. Tinfoil cap, standard bottle, nothing special here, unless it’s the clear statement of ingredients that El Kapitan so likes to see. Knowing his predilection for rums to be rums, I think I’ll pre-empt him and say flat out that a lot of people will not consider this to be one, not just because it’s not 100% cane juice or molasses, and also because of all the extras, but mostly because the makers themselves don’t.

As a 35% likker, I didn’t expect much, and I didn’t get much: on the nose it was a shade musty, with herbal and grassy notes (I felt I was in a tropical jungle glade, to be honest), and additional hints of vanilla.  As befitted an underproof, it was soft and easy and made no demands.  Quite gentle, actually.

The arrival was along similar lines.  One might almost say it was lazy: soft and sweet and slow to come forth, with vanilla, caramel, dark sugar and that herbal, grassy note taking something of the edge there spirit(and nicely so).  I think I noted some ginger, maybe citrus, but these were backseat drivers, not the equivalent of my wife’s more in-your-face front-seat aggro.  As for the fade, well, it faded.  There was nothing there to really speak of…what little there was hinted of nuts and more vanilla, but I’d be lying if I said I was anything but indifferent about it.  See, this is where the 35% works against the spirit: as a gentle cocktail mixer (which is how many drink it) with delicate tropical ingredients, it’ll probably work – as a sipper in its own right, it’s…well, it’s a shade wussy.  Keep in mind though, I’m used to stuff north of 40% (including the Lemon Hart 151 which was a gobsmacking 75.5%), so your mileage, depending on what you like, may vary. No offense to the Thais, but West Indian would probably snicker a little at this one.

Mekhong Thai spirit is a product of the Bangyikhan distillery located on the outskirts of Bangkok, and is Thailand’s first domestically produced (and branded) spirit, first created in 1941. It had its origin with James Honzatko, who was an avid brewer and eventually began producing his favourite whisky on a large scale. After Honzatko’s death, his close friend Peter Sawer took over the brewing of Mekhong and was ultimately responsible for its mass production. It’s an interesting point that Mekhong is marketed in Asia as a whiskey even if the label doesn’t say so, but it is of course nothing of the kind (so relax, Maltmonster). The distillery itself goes back a lot further, however: Bangyikhan considers itself Thailand’s first distillery, constructed in 1786 by King Buddha Yodfah Chulaloke at the mouth of the Klong Bangyikhan Canal, the canal eventually lending its name to the distillery. It was owned at various times by different parts of the Thai government, until 1957 when the private sector began taking over. In 2000, it was acquired by the Thai Beverage Company.

It may simply be an Asian thing, but rums don’t seem to be a drink of the region the way whiskies are identified with Scotland, gins with the english, vodka with the Russians or rums with the Caribbean.  That’s unfortunate, since the sugar cane grasses originated in that region and you’d expect they’d be going great guns there.  However, given the startling originality (I didn’t say I liked it) of the Australian Bundie, the overall solidity of the Philippine Tanduay and the impressive quality of the Indian Old Port, I know the expertise and quality is there.  Here’s to hoping that the Thais spread out and go for stronger, more distinctive spirits that can really be called rums….I for one will certainly be buying if they do.

(#108. 74/100)