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Kirk and Sweeney 12-Year rum

Kirk and Sweeney 12-Year

Dominican Republic | Aged | 40% ABV

7.5/10
393 ratings
Recommendable to most
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393 Kirk and Sweeney 12-Year Ratings

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Paul B 🇺🇸 | 472 ratings
Posted 6 years ago

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.

Brandon 🇺🇸 | 18 ratings
Posted over 10 years ago

From the moment you pick it up you know this is gonna be a great rum experience. The heavy bottle fits perfectly in your hand as you pour. Crystaline golden honey cascades into your glass. The first to last sip is a balanced, blissful. Drier than many contemporary rums, with lots of oak and earth. It was preferred in a taste test with friends against the 25 yr El Dorado... Total opposites of course, but for 1/8th the price, I plan to get more K&S next time I find it.

Lawrence Greb 🇺🇸 | 7 ratings
Posted 9 years ago

Received this gem just the other day from a friend for my birthday. I tasted a bit of it and must say it was better after sitting and breathing a bit. Taste of Vanilla and bit smoky oak upon a smooth delivery with no annoying burn... Quite impressed with this Dominican Rum, a nice 12 year old... The pic is the first sipper on my kitchen counter top...

Roc James 🇺🇸 | 6 ratings
Posted 7 years ago

I've been drinking Captain Morgan private stock for years, and I never really had the desire to try anything else it was smooth and got the job done. Saw this on sale at the local store and figured I would give it a try, and I'm so glad I did. Not as much vanilla as the Captain, but absolutely no bite at all and tastes great on the rocks. The only bad thing to come out of this discovery is now I want to keep trying new more expensive rums to see if I can tell the difference.

martin jeppesen 🇩🇰 | 256 ratings
Posted over 8 years ago

Was looking forward to trying this highly estimed bottle, but to me it's kind of a let down. It'smedium priced in Denmark, but bested by a lot of simerly priced bottles. It offers a bit of vanilla, dark chocolate and dark berries, but is dominated by somewhat bitter oaky notes. This is normally not a put down for me, but the balance just seem's off here. Could be that I need to try it again.

Jack Farrell 🇺🇸 | 13 ratings
Posted almost 6 years ago

Am I drinking the same rum that everyone else is rating here? Virtually no sweetness, just a spiciness and too much bitterness which I assume is the charred oak. The finish is short and bitter. Luckily I caught this on sale for cheap. Hey, I really wanted to like this but it is what it is.

James 🇺🇸 | 19 ratings
Posted over 7 years ago

Again...suckered into buying this by the rave reviews on this website...Starting to wonder....

It's okay.
Smell: spice and burnt tropical fruit
Taste: spice and burnt tropical fruit with a war of flavors going on in the vanilla, allspice, caramel areas

Factoring for price and 12-year aging, a 5/10 is where this one goes easily. This is a rum with an identity crisis.

Falcon91Wolvrn03 (PREMIUM) 🇺🇸 | 563 ratings
Posted over 8 years ago

I purchased this for only $33.99 (K&L Wines 2015), so based on the price my expectations weren't that high. But this rum greatly exceeded my expectations!

It tastes like an agricole, albeit an exceptional one, and tastes at least as good as the far more expensive Clement XO (imho). It smells and tastes of sugar cane, caramel, vanilla, cookie dough, oak, honey, and molasses.

One of the best rum values in my opinion, this is a must try!

Edit: I've since tried the 18 and 23year Kirk & Sweeney, which are considerably better!

PhilipR 🇺🇸 | 8 ratings
Posted almost 9 years ago

Can't believe this great tasting rum csn be so inexpensive. Now taste for yourself and i think you'll agree.

Thos 🇺🇸 | 13 ratings
Posted almost 10 years ago

This rum is about as good as it gets in the mid-upper price zone - at about $35 bucks a bottle - this rum is smooth and flavorful with a lot of fruity flavors and just enough woody vanilla overtones to be an excellent rum and not a whiskey wannabe.

Beukeboom 🇺🇸 | 304 ratings
Posted over 8 years ago

I'm not one who normally drinks rum straight but the Kirk and Sweeney 12 year rum is so smooth that it actually might be one I could enjoy neat. However I use it as is my norm in Coke Zero and it blends amazingly well (3oz in a 16.9oz Coke Zero). In fact it actually makes the Coke Zero taste better IMHO. I recently found the K&S 23 year rum and will try it soon comparing it to the 12 year to see if I (a rather rum-uneducated fellow) can detect any discernible differences. However based upon how good the 12 year it, I expect the 23 year rum to be, at least, equally as good. Perhaps better. We shall see.

BTW, the bottle is rather unique in that how thick and heavy the glass is. Almost too nice to recycle once the rum is gone. Any suggestions on a re-use for the K&S bottle?




Brand Details

Name: 12-Year
Years Aged: 12
ABV: 40%
Type: Kirk and Sweeney
Raw Material: Unknown
Process: Unknown
Distillation: Unknown
Women Led Rum: No