Bacardi Gran Reserva 8-Year

Another sweet, flat and uninspiring bottle from the boys at Bacardi. More expensive than the reserva or gold, but just as bad.

Very disappointing rum, aging not filling at all, sharp alcohol and no aftertaste.

I’ve had worst Bacardi rum. I was expecting more from this one. Still not a very good rum. I come to the conclusion that Bacardi rums are not for me.

This one is as bad or worse than the 8 years. I dont know what all of you that give this rum a high rating have been drinkig lately but this is nowhere near a decent rum.

So, take this with a lot of salt, as this is my first rum review.
I gotta say, having drank Bacardi all my life (with coke) this was a major disappointment. I tried this neat, to experience all the flavors, and couldn’t discern anything good. There was just bitterness. I couldn’t finish the shot, dumped a bit of coke in it, and still tasted paint thinner. I preceded it with another rum neat, so I know I can enjoy rum, just this isn’t one to do it with.

The only Bacardi Rum that I used to drink was the Anejo, which was about 20 years ago, until I found better rums in other brands. Everyone likes to berate Bacardi, which is so easy to do, but I went searching through these reviews to see if I could find their top of the line rum without having to take the expensive distillery tour and pouring one's own bottle. This one fit the bill at an affordable price.

I happened to pick up a bottle of this for about $28 on the way to an out of town concert. It was in one of those fancy canisters usually found for single malt scotches. When I got to the counter, the clerk praised me for choosing "top shelf". Then I went online to search for the difference between bottles labeled as "Gran Reserva" like mine as opposed to those bottles of a slightly different shape without that phrase. I could not find much at all other than Gran Reserva is from the Bahamas and the other version may be from Puerto Rico or the Bahamas. Yes, it's just like Bacardi to keep the drinking public confused.

Since my goal is to add to my collection of neat sippers, this was one of my first tastes. I was unimpressed to say the least. It has a strange smell and a rather bitter aftertaste. Compared to my ultimate favorite of Diplomatico Reserva Exclusiva (and for only $7 more), this Bacardi 8 is left behind in the dirt. Adding a few drops of water did not help. Adding ice cubes did not help. If this is what dry rums taste like, then I want no more. I did not even bother to waste lime juice and simple syrup as mixers because this won't even cut it as a mixer rum. There are many other better mixers than this one and they are also cheaper. I have basically fallen for Bacardi's marketing schemes. So go ahead and berate Bacardi because they have earned those low ratings.

As for the empty bottle being used to store complex pre-mixed Tiki drinks, others such as Papas Pilar and Pyrat XO work better and you also don't have to keep looking at the Bacardi bat every time you open it up.

There are only a few other rums that I found to be worse than this one and none are from Bacardi. When a rum collector takes risks, eventually they wind up with some horrible stuff that is even worse than Bacardi or Captain Morgan. I will not lower myself by adding ratings from those crappy rums just to boost up my number of reviews. After all, this site is here to help us all into avoiding buying such crap in the first place. This site has saved me lots of money in my experimenting with rums that fit my flavor profile. For less than three grand, I now have a damn fine rum collection with very few failures after only 8 weeks.

Thought this was like their other 8 year old one. What a mistake that was. It has the same name and a fancier bottle, however the contents is far from the same. What the hell Bacardi get your act together

Expected more. Receive nothing. Lost my time and an opportunity to taste something else that night...

I think the "bat device" took a massive guano in this barrel.... every year for 8 years. Serious gut rot. Serious water trots.

Pour on some ice and it's not terrible but definitely not what one might hope for.