Gosling's Black Seal

This is a good dark rum and excellent mixer. Obvi must have for Dark'n Stormy. Good starting point for dark rums.

While there may be better rums out there, sometimes you just have to stick with tradition when it works.
Is this the best dark rum? No.
Can you make Dark and Stormy’s with something else? Sure
How did this become the go to rum for that venerable cocktail? Who cares! They’re good!
If you use a good quality, spicy ginger beer, you will more than likely overpower any other rum. Sometimes you just stick with tradition and marketing gimmicks and have a drink.
Do yourself a favour and buy this even if you only use it for the one cocktail.

A retro bottle. Smells like ethanol and spices. Tastes like ethanol, sugar coloring and the industrial revolution. Hope it tastes better in cocktails than it does neat.

I recently started to stock rums for tiki cocktails. While I need a dark Jamaican, I also wanted to try a dark & stormy that was authentic. Since I already had Whaler's, I wasn't going to buy two more dark rums.

This smells of hickory smoke and tastes bitter and, well, that's it. The bitterness and sharp heat covers up anything else I could possibly taste.

Ginger beer is spicy and ridiculously sweet so the bitterness is a good counter point I suppose.
Unfortunately, both are hot in different ways making me feel like there is no reason to ever try this or a dark n stormy again.

Edit: So trying this in other drinks that required a dark rum and I've changed my mind and upgraded my rating. The rich dark character really helps an overly sweet drink and makes it comforting.

It is comparable to Diplomatico mantuano. An ok rum that doesn't disappoint

Made an account just to rate this as the first! Rum newbie, this one is really showing off how diverse rum can be!

Deep aroma, beautiful long lasting caramel and cocoa notes. Sip is warming with a creamy mouth feel, long finish. Peppery notes on top of the body. Lovely, excited to mix with it as well.

This is great as a mixer and not too bad as a sipper.

Tastes old. Not aged, old. Like when you got your first round of shots when you were 16 or like what you’d get if you asked for rum in old, old England.

Probably makes a couple of ok cocktails, but just tastes sort of weird and there’s far nicer options to mix with.

A bit like an 80s version of Kraken I guess.

This was an ok rum, but only use it for mixed drinks. It is good with a D&S , but definitely not a sipping rum in my opinion.

For the price you can’t beat this rum for your everyday sipper. A nice and dark rum with a great molasses flavour. It is definitely an all-rounder great for mixing and great for sipping. Don’t bypass this Bermuda 🇧🇲 beauty.