Kirk and Sweeney 12-Year

Experienced this at a rum festival. It was really smooth.

Pleasant on the nose and has a very smooth finish to it. After taste dosnt seem to last to long but overall a very nice sipping rum.

Close to the scotch, dry and a lot on the alcool. If u let it breathe a while, Its a soft rhum without too many complexity but a bit expensive in my opinion.

This was maybe my 2nd rum for sipping after Flora De Cana and what a stellar drink this is. Big vanilla followed by sweet and a little heat. This was my favourite until I tried Zafrans haha. But seriously I let this rum sit in a glass for a few hours before consumption because I think it taste far better that way.

Until a few short years ago, I believed that Rum was mainly good for mixing with sodas and juices to add a little flavor and a lot of kick to a cocktail. That was until one night at Foundation Tiki Bar in Milwaukee when I was pleased to meet a bottle that was a game changer.
Don at Foundation and I struck up a ready friendship one evening when I was visiting the area. I told him that I was probably going to move to the Dominican Republic for work. He pulled a beautiful and heavy bottle from the shelf and asked if I had tried Dominican Rum. I had not, so he introduced me to Kirk and Sweeney 12 year old and with that a whole new world opened to me.
Perhaps I score the 12 a bit high, but to be fair, it is kind of my first love when it comes to the world of fine rums. I have to say that the 18 is definately worth the few extra bucks, but as far as I am concerned, one can stop there, the 23 is not much better, if at all than the 18.
The Kirk and Sweeney is not overly sweet and has lovely overtones of vanilla. It is smooth as a mink glove and is in my opinion, much overlooked.
Now, I have recently moved to the Cleveland area and alas, Kirk and Sweeney is not distributed here. I hope that they will find their way into our market because I miss them.
I have won over more than a few scotch drinking buddies with K&S.

With a toffe flavor I don’t use a lime. If you have had Pappas Pillar you are getting close to the flavor, but Pappa P has a stronger flavor. Not that good for sipping but I do use coke and lime with this brand. I would buy it again.

Very smooth and easy to drink. I am impressed with all the Kirk and Sweeney rums, and they won't break the bank!!

I visited my favorite liquor store in hopes of finding another bottle of El Dorado 12-year-old, which was the only vintage sold out. I then saw this highly acclaimed aged rum agricole for only $27. Buying it was a no-brainer. It is one of the smoothest rums that I have ever tasted with very little burn. As for flavors, all I can taste is caramel. Adding ice to it did not improve it, so this is a smooth sipping rum to be enjoyed neat. It would also put any gourmet desert dish over the top. In a mixed drink or even a craft cocktail, that would be unthinkable.

Update about three weeks later: After letting it sit for a few weeks with only a couple of snifters tasted at first, the flavor profile changed drastically. The intense sweetness was replaced by the smell and taste of wet leather, as in wet sandals or a wet leather belt. This is not necessarily a bad thing because it reminds me of fools who don't know about proper footwear on the beaches of the Caribbean. It's either barefoot, cheap flip-flops, or reef booties for snorkeling or scuba diving. The smell and taste is not over powering and this rum is still one step above the horrible Zacapa Solera 23. Bourbon oak barrels are known to impart a taste of leather, but it is always subtle and nothing this strong. Maybe the sugar brought out the leather smells. At any rate, I docked this one a point and may not buy it again.

Now about the bottle with multiple purposes. First off, it suckered all of us into buying the cheap rum inside. It is very hard to pour and needs two hands. Quite often, a nut cracker is needed to unscrew the tight fitting cork. This is without question one of the heaviest rum bottles that I ever bought. It would seem like the best bottle to bring onto the boat filled with complex pre-mixed tiki drinks that would avoid tipping over, but empty bottles of Papas Pilar or Pyrat XO serve this purpose much better. This K&S also happens to be a much better rum than those other two bottles just noted.

This was my very first review for Rum Ratings and this bottle was purchased after reading many of these reviews. Plantation Pineapple reviews are what lead me here in the first place.

Update May 7, 2019: For those of you who still have the old bottles of K&S with them being widest at the top, KEEP THEM as they will soon become collector's items!!! The new bottles are totally round and look like rum versions of Chambord Liqueur. I kid you not! I at first criticized my bottle of K&S 12 as being hard to pour and needing two hands. At least the cork fits tight and the bottle is unlikely to spill on a rocking boat out to sea! After having a lot a very bad rum bottle designs, those original K&S bottles are for keeps! Hang on to them.

Very nice rum. Not as sweet as some of the other popular brands such as Diplomatico, Zacapa and Zaya. Well balanced and smooth.

Great looking bottle and back story to this rum. I bought this bottle for my son for Christmas 2017, and he offered me the first sip. Hints of vanilla and toffee when it was first opened. The toffee flavour continue with every taste. A great rum overall. Merry Christmas Son!