Joel Richard Esencia 25-Year

Enjoyed a bottle of Joel Richard Esencia 25y rum. Very nice and high end bottle and label design. Cork says Dictador but nowhere else on the bottle is this mentioned. I highly doubt it's actually 25y old rum but more Solera 25. Could be clever mismarketing effort since it's not worth the $105 price tag. Deep mahogany color. Very close to the Dictador XO Perpetual on flavor profile. Plenty of coffee and a dry finish. Hardly any burn, but not a pleasant ending.

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'.