Informal Spiced RUM tasting

With my family in town for the holidays, I invited my two brother-in-laws to join me in a RUM tasting. Since I had been drinking Kraken and Ginger Ale with dinner I thought I'd pull a number of Spiced RUMs out for us to sample.

I pulled out six Spiced RUMs: Seven Tiki Spiced RUM, Ron Diaz Gran Reserva Spiced RUM, Whaler's Spiced RUM, Kraken Black Spiced RUM, Tropic Isle Palms Spiced Cask RUM and Voodoo Spiced RUM.

Because my brothers are not regular drinkers I decided to keep the tasting informal. As we tried each RUM we talked about eachs appearance, aroma, taste and linger.

We were surprised by the lack of Spicyness with most of the samples. Only Seven Tiki and Kraken really showed traditional Spicy flavors while the Whaler's and Tropic Isle Palms were much sweeter than expected. All of the RUMs were good but none were truly great. We ranked them as follows:

1. Seven Tiki
2. Kraken
3. Whaler's
4. Voodoo
5. Ron Diaz Gran Reserva
6. Tropic Isle Palms

We all had a good time, got a little tipsy and I think my brothers have a better appreciation of RUM and eachs unique flavor.

Seven Tiki Spiced RUM

A couple of weeks prior to breaking my leg/ankle, a good friend brought me a bottle of Seven Tiki Spiced Rum back from his trip to Key West. Being that Seven Tiki is only available in California and Florida, I thought it was quite a nice gift for a RUM and tiki fanatic.

A month in the hospital and my new medication has prevented me from opening my gift. With my friend visiting last weekend I thought it would be good to pop the Seven Tiki open and have a sip.

While this isn't a formal review I will say I liked the Seven Tiki's vanilla, butterscoth smoothness with just a touch of fruit flavor (cherry, peach, maybe banana). Throw in the company of a good friend and it made for a nice evening. I promise to do a formal review soon.

Seven Tiki Spiced RUM

Here's another RUM that caught my eye. I am big into all things TIKI so a RUM with tiki in it's name is a must try. This is a 70 proof Spiced RUM but from what I've read there is a Dark and Silver RUM available too. Their literature says that it's made in Fiki but there seems to be some doubt to that claim. According to Edward Hamilton at Ministry Of RUM, it "is produced at the South Pacific Distillery in Fiji, a small distillery adjacent to the major Fiji Sugar Corp. sugar mill, which is near Lautoka city on the North West Coast of the main Fijian island of Viti Levu." It's raw material is "Sugar cane molasses from high-quality Fijian sugar cane, which has been growing in Fiji for thousands of years. It is produced on a continuous still. The continuous still gets its steam from a wood fired boiler." Yes, it actually is blended and ages in Fiji but bottled in France (for Europe) and the United States. It's primary uniqueness is that they use pure water from Fiji and sun-baked Indonesian nutmeg and Madagascar vanilla beans. It is certainly the only South Pacific RUM I've ever heard about. Seven Tiki Spiced RUM is part of the Bacardi Globe Brand line-up and is currently only available in California and Florida. I think I can order it online. Huh, maybe I am do another Christmas gift!