Joel Richard Esencia 25-Year

Many thanks to Joola69 for sharing this with me as part of a rare rum exchange!

This is a pretty tasty rum. But it's a little pricey for my score. It says 'Dictator' on the cap, so I compared it with the similarly priced Dictator Insolent and Dictator Perpetual. I like the Insolent best; and I found this closer to the Perpetual (and just slightly better than that to me).

Smells and tastes of tootsie roll, molasses, and coffee. A good rum for sure - I'll give it a solid '8'.

Had a glass at Tarpy's in Monterey, CA. Sweeter than i would have thought, but a very pleasant flavor with no afterburn. A 7.5 on my scale.

Picked up a bottle of this at Chips Liquor in San Diego for $85. Very smooth and tasty - no burn at all. Notes of caramel, coffee and butterscotch. I would agree with the thoughts on this being made by Dictador, I suspect that this has a good amount of back-sweetening which seems common to Dictador rums.

Excellent sipping rum, definitely on the sweeter side with some nice overtones and little to no burn. Nothing offensive or unusual. Nice color and overall presentation, but a little expensive. For less $$, I would instead buy the Centenario 20yr which has a similar profile.