new to drinking rum

Hi Mark . There is a good choice here in Oz for quality sipping rums albeit all pretty expensive ! Have a look at LIquor Mojo , Dan Murphys and Nicks Wine web sites for plenty of choice. My personal favourites over here without breaking the bank are... El Dorado 12 & 15 , Dom. Reserva Exclusiva , Plantation 20 Anniversary , Anything from Foursquare , Mount Gay xo and Black barrel , Appletons 12 . Zafra 21 and from the local stables... Bundaberg Small Batch Vintage barrel or Beenleigh 5 yr old... warning do not try their cheaper offerings unless you like the taste of Kerosine !! On the spiced front , try Baron Samedi , Redleg , Untold and Rumbullion. Good luck and enjoy the journey... you can see my own personal ratings and preferences on this site , regards Martin.

Mark, welcome aboard! You can waste a LOT of money experimenting, so the best place to start your research is the "Rums" tab in the upper left corner of this website. They will be arranged by popularity based upon number of reviews for each one on this site. The top seven all have reviews from me. Pay special attention to those reviewers with 30 or more reviews posted here. Single reviews with a rating of 10 should be ignored unless they are fairly new. Once you have started reading, you will need to identify if your palate prefers sweet or dry. Some of the reviews have added sugar amounts posted. Any rum with 30-49 grams per liter of added sugar is called a sugar bomb. The top two in the Rums list are sugar bombs. Sweet rums will have 20-29 gpl of added sugar. Semi-dry rums will have 10-19 gpl of added sugar. Dry rums will have 0-9 gpl of added sugar. To give you an idea, 1 teaspoon of sugar is 4.2 grams. Any rum with 50 gpl or more of added sugar is considered to be flavored. Only use those for seasoning special drinks. A good dry rum that is cheap and the ultimate best value overall would be Don Q Anejo (not the more expensive Gran Anejo). A good semi-dry rum that is very affordable is El Dorado 8 Year Old. The 12 Year Old is even better, but is a $31 sugar bomb. Be wary of any rum aged in sherry or port barrels since these are for very advanced tastes only. I can't stand most of them because the aging is overdone. Also stick with 12 year olds or less. Don't be misled by rums aged any longer that demand much higher prices. In the process of researching and trying, you will find certain reviews whose tastes match yours as closely as possible. Conversely, there will be some reviewers whose tastes are so different than yours that you may not want to try their recommendations. As for me, I started out with sugar bombs and have slowly gravitated towards dry and semi-dry.

Mark, I noticed that your first two ratings are a 5 for some very common rums, which is great. The Bacardi Oakheart has 20 gpl of added sugar which makes it sweet. The Captain Morgan Original Spiced Gold has 14 gpl of added sugar, which makes it semi-dry. On your wish list is Zacapa 23, which has 44 gpl of added sugar as one of the ultimate sugar bombs. I started out liking it months ago and then could not wait to get it out of my sight, so it has been long gone and will not be replaced. Also, that Zacapa is not really 23 years old. It is solera blended, which means that it could have a teaspoon of a 23 year old rum or have 23 different rums. There are no guidelines for foreign countries to follow.

Stay away from Ron's except Cuba's. Try some Rhum Agricole. Try some Jamaican. Try some Bajan. 8-12 y/o will do but even the white rums taste great.

Hi Mark, welcome to the fantastic world of rum ! I think you have to try any style and type of rum/rhum/ron, so you can train your taste buds and memory. Otherwise you don’t have the feeling of what it is. Try to find out what your favourite style is, funky Jamaican, pure basic Bajan, hearty Demerara, fruity rhum, sweeties or boring Soleras from Dominican Republic (just for example) The most important thing is, that you enjoy the journey through the world of rum. Start on low/medium level rum, you have the time of your whole life to end up with premium rum. After you find your favourite style, look out for some independent bottlers, they have usually some nice single cask bottles, no colour, no sugar, no filtration. For me, I love any style of rum but not everyone suits every time or place. Info – my ratings, English version always below.

Mark: Of the 107 rums that I have tried, a whopping one third of them I would never buy again. And this is with using guidance from these ratings. I am also a risk taker and can afford to do so, but if the choices are not careful, it can cost you a lot. I recommend reading the reviews of those with 30 or more ratings and try to guess which one fits your palate. Some obviously like sweet rums. Others like dry rums only. And there are some like me who enjoy both. Just be aware that if you get a very sweet rum with more than 25 gpl of added sugar or sugar bomb with more than 29 gpl of added sugar, be prepared to consume the whole bottle in three months or less to avoid having it lose it's flavor. Any rum with more than 50 gpl of added sugar is a flavored rum and should only be used like a seasoning for food, but to enhance tropical drinks.