Jun 142023

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.
