Expensive Spiced Rums Blind Tasted And Ranked

I went out and bought every expensive spice rum I could find in my local area and I'm going to blind taste and rank them. Expensive is a relative term. Spice rum doesn't get that expensive. These are from $23 up to $35. The real cheap stuff is less than $10 maybe, but I know that real cheap stuff is just gonna taste like harsh vanilla vodka. So I wanted to have the best chance of finding something that I actually like. I just went ahead and bought the most expensive ones. I'll put all these in sample bottles so I don't know what they are and through the magic of editing I'll be able to tell you what I'm drinking at the time without me actually knowing. I don't know if any of these are good. Maybe they'll all be good. I'll rate them on a scale of 0 to 100 of how I like it just neat. I know most people use them as mixers but it'll be good to know how good each one is individually. It's also good to know the flavor profile of each. I finished re-bottling all the spiced rums over here and I have a bunch of clean glasses. I'm going to start tasting them and arranging them from best to worst and keep track of how good it is. The farther forward the better I like it. I'll be rating them just on how I like them as they are, not if I think they're going to be good with a some kind of mixer or anything else other than just how I like it as it is. So I will just start with whatever this one is. Lemba Spiced Rum from the Dominican Republic. 40% ABV and made with Lemba's one year aged rum. All natural flavors. This was $25. The scent on this one isn't that strong. It's sweet vanilla maybe slight cinnamon. That's good. It's not as sweet as I thought it would be. It tastes like rum. It actually tastes like spices. Light vanilla. The flavor is gone pretty fast in your mouth. I don't know if that one's great yet or if it's just good but it's at least good. So I will store it right there in the middle. Next up Captain Morgan Private Stock Caribbean Aged Rum with spice and other natural flavors. 40% ABV. This cost me $29. I think the only spice rum I've ever actually had before is the original Captain Morgan. I don't think I was that much of a fan of it. Maybe their private stock is better. Says Caribbean rum but it doesn't say where it's from. Finished and bottled in the United States. There's a little caramel smell. Caramel? Caramel? I think I say caramel. Caramel? Now I don't know what I say. I think I say it both. That doesn't smell very good though. Smells like a rougher spirit is in there. That tastes better though. There's oak. There is sweetness. What kind of sweetness? Just generic sweetness to me. No actually it's uh it's like caramel. There caramel. Caramel and vanilla and oak. I actually I like that flavor. The smell of it though makes you think it's just gonna be a like a harsh Bacardi. I'm gonna say it's a little worse than the last. I think it's still good though. I'll come back and adjust as I go through everything. Next up is the second most expensive I have. Kaloa kawaii spiced rum. $33. This is rum made from sugarcane grown in Hawaii. 44% ABV. This one has a light scent also. Vanilla. Some sort of candy smell. It's interesting. It's way too sweet. Light vanilla but this overwhelming sweet like a cotton candy sweetness. Got to be lots of sugar in there. It's coating my mouth. And there's a bitterness on the finish but like no real flavor to it. That's the worst of them so far. This one next. The most expensive of the seven at $34. Malahat spirit spiced rum. This is distilled and produced in San Diego, California. I have their white rum. In a blind taste test I just thought it was decent. So I'm not sure how well this will go. This is 40% ABV. Says handcrafted whatever that means. I don't mind if I waste a little. I've pretty much got a lifetime supply of spiced rum here. Whoa what is that? That is strong. I know that smell. Oh it's very strong bubblegum smell. Yeah the pink bubblegum. It tastes like bubblegum with bitterness. There's some spice in there that's the clove. Tastes like clove. That is weird. That doesn't taste like rum though. It's not as sweet as I thought it would be. It's actually kind of bitter. Slightly bitter bubblegum. Better than the last one but I don't know. Don't know if I'm digging that yet. So I'm putting it right there now. Next up Don Q Oak Barrel Spiced. It is 45% ABV from Puerto Rico. It says blend of rums laid down in American white oak barrels but it does not have an age statement. This was $31. This one smells like a rough bottom shelf bottle with some sweetness in there. Vanilla again. I take back about how rough it smells. It doesn't smell that bad but not much spice is coming off of it. Is that Puerto Rican? Something something tastes Puerto Rican about it. I don't think I'm good enough at tasting rums to know that but if I am that's amazing. Maybe my something in my brain remembers something Puerto Rican. There's oakiness to it. It's very light on the spices. Tastes like a rum with a little vanilla and sugar added. I'm not thinking that's very good. That would be decent. Is it better than this worst one though? It's just it's kind of kind of bland. It's not much worse but I think it's the worst one yet. All right this is Bumboo Rum with Natural Flavors. 35% ABV and $35. Oh that is banana. Did someone smash a banana up in here? Kind of artificial banana and kind of the banana flesh. Yeah all I'm smelling on that is bananas. It's like it's like a banana water. I gotta wash that out of my mouth so I could re-taste it again. I don't I don't know why but I need to. That is really confusing me. I'm gonna try that again. The banana scent is so strong as you're drinking it from the glass you just it you get bananas going into your nose which is good usually I would say but it's overwhelmingly bananas. That doesn't taste like alcohol. That is dangerous whatever that is. It has to be low proof. The lowest ABV out of all these is 35%. It really tastes like sweetened banana water. I don't know if I like it or I don't. It's it's definitely not it's not great. I'm gonna put it right here. I'm gonna say it's good. The caveat that it's it's really different. It's like it's it's it's not alcohol. What is that? I'll put it there for right now. Last up least expensive of all seven is Kraken Gold Spiced Rum. I won't crack into any dad jokes. What? This is fairly new compared to the Kraken Black Spiced Rum. I got that over right over here actually. Kraken Black Spiced Rum. This Black Spiced Rum is actually cheaper than the gold stuff. The Black Spiced Rum is about 18 bucks. I'm not sure why this is more expensive. It's lower proof. It's only 35% ABV. This one just smells like rum. Maybe slightly sweet. Sweet with caramel. Other than that it smells like just rum. That is also very watery weak. There's no harshness to it at all though. It's not overly sweet. I'm liking it. Very lightly spiced. Light on vanilla. I'm getting a hint of banana in this one too. I don't know if the banana was so strong it's still on my tongue. This one's good because it's just a rounded rum with just hints of something. They're just hints. I can't tell what they are. Is it better than this oaky one? I'm thinking this one here must be the Don Q Oak because it's the only one that really has a wood flavor. Is this better than that weird banana stuff though? It is better. I'm going to go through and re-taste all these a second time. See if anything needs to be swapped around and then I'll come back with final ratings. Okay I've got them all ranked and rated. My stomach is full of rum and water. What's the odds that I don't get a hangover? Pretty low. I have a very good idea. My two favorites. They're very close. The stuff was rearranged a little after the second tasting and definitely these are better than these. So worst to best. So I'm going to start off with the worst. So I got to look up what the numbers are. Okay my worst is the Kahloa Kawaii Spice. Well that was the only one with a poor rating of 49. Second worst was the one that just tastes like bubble gum is Malahat Spirit Spice Rum with a rating of 58. Just slightly better score of 59 was Don Q Oak Barrel Spiced. I was wrong. I thought this one that I have ranked number one was Don Q. So I am very confused right now. Does this one really taste oak? Yeah I could taste some. I could taste oak on there. How did this one? These are both oaky. This one has a longer oak finish whatever this one in the first is. We'll find out what that is later. Right in the middle good score of 64 is Kraken Gold Spice Rum. Third place a good score of 66 is Bumboo. This is the one that just tastes like banana sweet banana water. This is the one that's the most different out of all these. I still not sure how I feel about it but I think it's it's pretty good. It just doesn't really taste like alcohol which I guess for some people is probably great. I bet my wife would like this. Second place very closely I moved it down from first to second after second taste is Lemba Spiced Rum with a score of 72. It's it's really good. It's great. So that leaves my favorite out of all these with a score of 73 Captain Morgan Private Stock. I really thought this was going to be garbage but it's it's really good. I don't know what to say. Get a little more of it. You can taste the oak. It's been aged. Yeah I could I could definitely drink that neat. It's not super sweet. Pretty rounded on the flavor. That's that's really good. It's great. Captain Morgan and it's not the most expensive either. The most expensive ones coincidentally are the worst ones. These are the two these were the three most expensive and I thought they're the worst. The Malahat is very interesting at least. It's tastes like bubble gum. Someone chewed up some bubble gum while they were drinking rum and spit it back out. That makes it sound really bad. It's not that bad. Now there's only one thing left to do is find the best mixer for my lifetime supply of spiced rum and that video will go right here.