Where to begin my rum journey

Greetings If Its broken fix it! That's a well chosen handle of a name! Since I have lots of data in my complex spreadsheet, I was able to easily rank all of my ratings into the two price categories that you requested: $30 or below or anything costing more. I kept in mind that my suggestions should all be of good value. Two of the "expensive" rums wound up costing $32 each. Read my reviews on all of the ones shown below for further details. Then read other reviews with various ratings. Value rums that cost $30 US or less: Blackwell's Reserve Plantation OFTD (great overproof for on the rocks) El Dorado 8 Value rums that cost more than $30 US: El Dorado 12 ($32) Plantation XO 20th Anniversary ($42) South Bay Small Batch ($32) Money no object (and my top two overall): Dictador XO Insolent ($100) Dictador 20 ($65 with very similar tastes to Insolent) However, both of these rums are sweet tasting with no added sugar because of the barrels that they were aged in, which had stored coffee beans and were used to age aguardiente in Columbia. Reading these reviews and finding fellow reviewers with tastes similar to your own based upon rums that you already know about is your best and cheapest way to start. You can waste a LOT of money experimenting without any background. Also try to determine which reviewers are generous with their ratings and which ones like to rate low. Theoretically, all of one's reviews should follow the bell shaped curve with very few rated at the extreme ends. However, with the help of all of these reviews, the bulk of my ratings wound up as a 7 or 6. Anything that I have rated as a 5 or less are ones that I will never buy again. The morning after is what caused me to rate The Kraken in the 5 or less ratings group. Good luck!