Havana Club 7-Year

Picked up a couple bottles of Havana Club 7 in Saint Maarten last month while on a cruise. Able to buy 2 bottle for $30! Being that you can't get Cuban rum in the States yet, I was psyched to have a representation of rum from Cuba in my rum collection. I passed over the Maestros for $90 for the cheaper sibling.
Unfortunately, it is not what I thought it would be like and hence, wish I had spent the extra money and purchased the Seleccion de Maestro but...no use in crying over spilled milk, so to speak.
It is on the dry side with some burn. Amber color with dried fruit, oak, nuts, leather and tobacco notes. This can be enjoyed neat or mixed. Decent rum indicative of Cuba.

Not fantastic but better than entry level. Would drink in a bind, as the rating says.

That's that kind of rum what everybody will like. Nothing special, but everything is good, colour, aroma, taste. Good for coke.

Decent flavour on its own, with club soda, or a splash of 7-up or sprite.

I got this one for cooking and for cocktails. I dont want to use my other rums for that - so this is the perfect match.

Not so good neat, but a decent mixer at a reasonable price.

On the nose there's a lot of flavors fighting for attention. Neat, this is nice but with coke I enjoy it better. I have tomuse a weaker ratio to tame the war of flavors.

This rum keeps getting better and is a favourite . It has a dry bite with a spicy flavour and not much of an aftertaste. When mixed in a rum and coke ,it has a good flavour.

As others have posted, the value for price is very good for this Cuban; you cant go wrong with the 7 yo HC. It is only 16$ a bottle and blows the doors off (more expensive) Bacardi and/or Capt. Morgan.

On my last international trip, I brought back 2 bottles of rum: Havana Club Selección [de Maestros], and Havana Club 7. The latter was a last-minute impulse buy at the duty-free, based on my impressions of having tried it earlier and being able to carry another bottle home. And let me tell you, I am so glad I got it.

At ~$40–50, Selección is a quality sipping rum and worth every penny. At ~$20, HC7 is a rum you can mix with every day without breaking the bank. Around the world it's just another rum; not bottom shelf, but nothing too special, either. But here in the US, I would argue, it is among the very best rum you can buy for the price (which, unfortunately, we still must do outside the US).

The nose hints at alcohol, but it's subtle. Woody and rummy. The flavor is rich—a dry expression of tobacco and oak, with a balanced burn. Yes, it is amazing in Coke, but it's also very good neat (perhaps with a cigar that's not too fancy). In cocktails, it's almost more like a super-dry Demerara (!) than a typical "Spanish-style gold" rum, which I tend to find lackluster, and offer a lighter, smoother, sweeter, more caramel/vanilla-forward flavor profile. HC7 is full-bodied, interesting, and (again) delicious. To each their own.

I may need to make a point to return with a bottle of this after every international trip...

8-, 7+