Banks 5-Island

If you closed your eyes you may not realize this is a white rum. Excellent mojito rum. Could make an interesting daiquiri. If l had to sip a white rum this would be the one.

Very smooth and well made! You almost feel bad mixing it but that’s where it really shines.

Compare and contrast with Cana Brava, another excellent white rum. Banks has lighter fruit notes, more sweet apple and pear. A delight to sip or mix.

Easy to drink. Not overpowering. Had it neat and it wasn't harsh.

Heavily (and enthusiastically) marketed in the US, this filtered white rum is actually a blend of aged and unaged expressions from up to 21 sources on 5 islands. It is an interesting blend as such, and has more body and flavor than most white rums that run the grain-alcohol gamut of distillate flavor. It's OK neat, and even better subbed into cocktails calling for lightly aged rums, especially when you are trying not to "brown" down the coloring of a bright tiki cocktail.

This is a pure, dry, flavourful white rum blend with complexity, an odd character of fruits like overripe banana. The rum is similar to Banks 7 but charcoal filtered to remove the pale colour but retain its aroma and flavours. Easily sipped after getting past the first sip/smell but not for me, I prefer an aged rum.

Ok. Rating this an 8 is perhaps unfair to a good, single pot still rum with the same rating. But I try to follow a principle where the scale is subdivided into the specific style or category the rum belongs in, and in the category “decently priced, white blended rums” this is my new favourite. My only objection is that filtering brown/golden rum to make it white takes away some of its character, and that is exactly what has been done here. On the other hand, this is only a valid objection when you know what you lose — which I don’t, of course.

Nose: A hint of funky wild yeast; overripe banana and floral cane. Also a hint of boiling rice that remains pleasant — not metallic or chemical.

Palate: An unexpected fruit explosion of banana , pineapple and green apple distinguished with some mint and caramel. There is also a faint taste of fresh oak, quite subdued by filtration I expect.

Aftertaste: At first disappointing but a return of estery fruit and oak is revealed after a few seconds.

This is certainly my new first choice of staple rum for daiquiris, punch and mojitos.

Hätte nie gedacht, dass ein weißer Rum so gut schmecken kann. Zum Mixen eigentlich schon viel zu schade. Kann man wirklich selbst bei Zimmertemperatur schnabulieren...

It's a blanco so it tastes as harsh as it is. Probably a good mixer.

A 4.5 on my scale. The Golden Age was a 4.5 to 5. Too much of an afterburn straight. Better mixed, but not getting much flavor one way or another.