Kirk and Sweeney 12-Year

I visited my favorite liquor store in hopes of finding another bottle of El Dorado 12-year-old, which was the only vintage sold out. I then saw this highly acclaimed aged rum agricole for only $27. Buying it was a no-brainer. It is one of the smoothest rums that I have ever tasted with very little burn. As for flavors, all I can taste is caramel. Adding ice to it did not improve it, so this is a smooth sipping rum to be enjoyed neat. It would also put any gourmet desert dish over the top. In a mixed drink or even a craft cocktail, that would be unthinkable.

Update about three weeks later: After letting it sit for a few weeks with only a couple of snifters tasted at first, the flavor profile changed drastically. The intense sweetness was replaced by the smell and taste of wet leather, as in wet sandals or a wet leather belt. This is not necessarily a bad thing because it reminds me of fools who don't know about proper footwear on the beaches of the Caribbean. It's either barefoot, cheap flip-flops, or reef booties for snorkeling or scuba diving. The smell and taste is not over powering and this rum is still one step above the horrible Zacapa Solera 23. Bourbon oak barrels are known to impart a taste of leather, but it is always subtle and nothing this strong. Maybe the sugar brought out the leather smells. At any rate, I docked this one a point and may not buy it again.

Now about the bottle with multiple purposes. First off, it suckered all of us into buying the cheap rum inside. It is very hard to pour and needs two hands. Quite often, a nut cracker is needed to unscrew the tight fitting cork. This is without question one of the heaviest rum bottles that I ever bought. It would seem like the best bottle to bring onto the boat filled with complex pre-mixed tiki drinks that would avoid tipping over, but empty bottles of Papas Pilar or Pyrat XO serve this purpose much better. This K&S also happens to be a much better rum than those other two bottles just noted.

This was my very first review for Rum Ratings and this bottle was purchased after reading many of these reviews. Plantation Pineapple reviews are what lead me here in the first place.

Update May 7, 2019: For those of you who still have the old bottles of K&S with them being widest at the top, KEEP THEM as they will soon become collector's items!!! The new bottles are totally round and look like rum versions of Chambord Liqueur. I kid you not! I at first criticized my bottle of K&S 12 as being hard to pour and needing two hands. At least the cork fits tight and the bottle is unlikely to spill on a rocking boat out to sea! After having a lot a very bad rum bottle designs, those original K&S bottles are for keeps! Hang on to them.