Vinepair: The 30 Best Rums for 2025

Rum continues to win hearts and fill jiggers and glasses by virtue of being one of the world’s most versatile and diverse spirits. Distilled from sugar cane juice, molasses, and other derivatives, it is crafted in column and pot stills, and matured in climates ranging from the humid Caribbean to cooler, continental warehouses. The result is a category that stretches from grassy agricoles and funky, high-ester bottlings to ultra-aged expressions that rival any whiskey.

That breadth is just as evident at the bar: Rum is vital to classics like the Daiquiri, Mojito, and Mai Tai, and central to modern creations like the Kingston Negroni. Of course, there are dedicated, top-shelf sippers, as well as spiced shooters, which accounted for more than half of the rum sold in the U.S. last year.

With all due respect to the latter style, we did not consider flavored selections for our annual rum roundup. Instead, we focused on the diverse range of examples outlined above, tasting roughly 100 bottles from almost two dozen nations to compile this list of the 30 best rums to drink right now.

The 30 Best Rums to Drink in 2025

The Best Rum for Cocktails

Transcontinental Rum Line High Seas

As the old line goes, “what one rum can’t do, three rums can,” and that’s exactly the proposition with this blend of Panamanian, Jamaican, and Martinique distillates. Bottled at 45 percent ABV, High Seas delivers savory, vegetal, and lightly sweet notes, alongside bursts of tropical fruit, spice, and coffee. Expressive but never overwhelming, it offers plenty of personality without threatening to steal the show — making it equally at home in a Daiquiri, Mai Tai, or more modern creations. At $35 per bottle, it’s a top-tier option that’ll basically run you the same amount as two drinks at a bar.

Average price: $35
Rating: 93

The Best Rums Under $100

The Spirit of Haiti Clairin Vaval

Bottled at a precise 53.5 percent ABV, this Clairin is produced by Distillerie Arawaks — owned and operated by Fritz Vaval, whose family has been in the farm distillery business for close to 80 years. Fermented using ambient yeasts and distilled on a proprietary still, the nose juxtaposes papaya and mango with salty umami aromas. The palate commits to more fruity and vegetal notes, with an enjoyably abrasive finish that speaks to the hands-on, traditional practices that led to its creation.

Average price: $50
Rating: 94

Shakara 12 Year Thai Rum

Launched in early 2024, this Thai rum is made from local molasses and runs through a column still before spending 12 years in ex-bourbon casks. Spice leads the profile, with bright accents of lemongrass and lime leaf building over a classic molasses core. Expressive and vibrant, it’s a great example of quality Southeast Asian spirits increasingly making their way to our market.

Average price: $59
Rating: 93

Alambique Serrano 3 Años Oaxacan Rum

Distilled from Java varietal cane juice and aged just over three years in new French oak, this blend of pot and Krassel column distillates arrives at 46.1 percent ABV. The profile is distinctly spiced, with ginger, nutmeg, and raisin notes evoking winter desserts and holiday delights — a vivid reminder that Oaxacan spirits extend well beyond mezcal.

Average price: $64
Rating: 93

Papalin Jamaica 5 Year High Ester Rum

Blended from Worthy Park, Long Pond, and Hampden distillates, this 5-year-old Jamaican rum is pot-distilled, aged in ex-bourbon casks, and bottled at 57 percent ABV. Aromas of overripe fruit and warm spice lead the way, with pepper, banana skin, and assertive heat defining the palate. While not the most intense rum Jamaica has to offer, it’s a complex, lively pour and a great intro to high-ester rum.

Average price: $67
Rating: 93

Privateer Rum The Queen’s Share

This Massachusetts rum revives the old Cognac tradition of collecting the “seconds” — the transitional cut between hearts and tails — and distilling everything a second time for added depth. Aged at least four years in a mix of new and used American oak, the barrels are then blended and re-casked for additional maturation. Bottled at cask strength, it delivers burnt sugar, coconut, and vanilla with remarkable balance. Approachable yet simultaneously complex, it stands as a benchmark American rum.

Average price: $70
Rating: 93

The Best Rums Over $100

Hampden Estate Pagos Jamaican Rum Batch 3

Aged entirely in former oloroso sherry casks from Bodegas Fundador, the third batch of Pagos builds on Hampden’s signature high-ester intensity with oxidative depth and dried fruit character. Bottled at 52 percent ABV, it delivers walnut, clove, and brandied cherry, alongside cocoa, honey, and citrus. The palate is nuanced, with savory depth meeting flashes of freshness.

Average price: $113
Rating: 94

Isautier Rhum Agricole 16 Year

Distilled in 2006 and aged 16 years in tropical conditions, this Reunion release was bottled at 59 percent ABV with just 3,790 bottles produced. The profile is bold yet refined, opening with dried fruits, warm spice, and citrus zest, then following with caramelized sugar and herbal accents. A singular agricole, it underscores Reunion’s credentials as one of the world’s most compelling — and still underappreciated — rum regions.

Average price: $144
Rating: 94

Bloomberg: The 15 Best New Bottles I Tried in 2024, From $26 to $26,000

Season’s greetings, spirits sippers! It’s Brad Japhe, the resident expert on the subject, reporting for duty. As is customary this time of year, I’m presenting my annual list of the absolute best bottles I encountered over the past 12 months. The stable of contenders was crowded in 2024: Of some 322 new expressions sampled, I counted no less than three dozen deserving of effusive praise. Sadly, some of those offerings are just so painfully pricey and/or excruciatingly allocated that I couldn’t, in good conscience, include them here.

Instead, my choices embody a wide variety of liquid across all categories and price points. Make no mistake, you will see bottles fetching four- or even five-figure sums—entries are organized in order of increasing cost—but it’s all relatively available for purchase. You won’t need an estate planner to broker acquisition.

But before we get to the big reveal, let’s recap the year’s major headlines. Beyond spotlighting the shape of the industry in 2024, these news items hint at where we’re headed in the months ahead.

For one thing, people aren’t paying as much for rare whiskey. A recent report from the financial advisory firm Noble & Co. indicated that the value of auctioned scotch cratered by 40% in 2024. But that hasn’t slowed the trend of formerly shuttered “ghost” distilleries rising from the grave across the Scottish landscape, as I reported this summer.

Tariffs proposed by the incoming administration mean your favorite tequila could effectively become 25% more expensive in the year ahead. And a separate trade war with the UK could persuade domestic scotch consumers to experiment with single malts from emerging markets such as India or New Zealand.

Or, perhaps they’ll start exploring American single malt, since the category is finally going to be recognized by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, after more than eight years of lobbying efforts.

But enough speculating about what’s coming. Here are my best bottles of 2024.

Alambique Serrano Rum Blend #5 — $70.Source: Vendor

Alambique Serrano Rum Blend #5

There’s more than just mezcal coming out of the highlands of Oaxaca. This artisanal brand from the steep hillsides of Santa María Tlalixtac specializes in world-class rum. In fact, you’ll be hard-pressed to find sugarcane distillate anywhere drenched in as much complexity as this 65.9%-ABV spiced-banana bomb. It’s a 50-50 blend of column spirit, aged for 27 months in ex-bourbon casks, with pot still spirit aged for 19 months in new French oak. Cut it with a splash of water to extend a tobacco and toasted almond-toned finish. Or knock it back neat, if you dare. ($70)

Hampden Great House 2024 Jamaican Rum — $130.Source: Vendor

Jamaica’s holy house of funk never disappoints when it comes to full-bodied expressions, brimming with over-ripened fruit. Although the exact recipe of this annual limited release shifts each year, it invariably involves a blend of rums that epitomize the brand’s signature style. This time around it finds form in a 57%-ABV sipper that wows with an initial wave of marmalade and cranberry relish, revealing more tropical fruit undertones as it warms in the dram. ($130)

‘We Stand for Non-Bullsh*t Products’: Why Blended Whiskey Makers Are Openly Discussing Their Spirits

From Barrell Craft Spirits to Mic Drop, a new wave of NDP's talk eschewing "tradition" to make unique bourbons.

Joe Beatrice spends his day tasting whiskey, assessing the character of the contents of barrel after barrel throughout his multiple maturation warehouses. It’s one of his jobs, along with his two full-time blenders, to know the flavor profiles of the over 10,000 casks of bourbon and rye they own. But while this is standard work at a distillery, what’s different about Barrell Craft Spirits, the company Beatrice founded in 2013, is that it’s never distilled a drop.

Barrell is one of the most celebrated of the new wave of non-distilling producers, or NDPs. In and of themselves, NDPs are nothing new; if you drink American whiskey, you’ve probably enjoyed many of them over the years, perhaps without even knowing it. Bulleit, for example. Or Redemption Rye, Templeton or Angel’s Envy. The list goes on.

Historically, NDPs haven’t been eager to highlight the fact that they don’t make their own whiskey. Bourbon, it was believed, was all about tradition, so there was an incentive to invent a fanciful yarn to suggest authenticity. But Barrell tells you as much as it can about what’s in the bottle, which might include where the whiskey was purchased and how old it is. “There’s no fake backstory,” Beatrice says. “I didn’t come across the blending recipe in my grandfather’s trunk. I didn’t get it from a Conestoga wagon.” The company simply buys barrels of liquid distilled by others, then employs in-house expertise to blend them into something exciting and new. “The notion that it can only be good if you make it yourself is crazy,” Beatrice says.

Since 2007, a distillery called High West in Park City, Utah, has been quietly leading the way on the concept of honest sourcing. Master distiller Brendan Coyle ranks transparency at “the top of the values list of the company.” High West, along with other pioneers such as Smooth Ambler, distills its own whiskey but also sources it from others (largely from the massive MGP plant in Indiana), using blending and imagination to concoct something unique, such as A Midwinter Night’s Dram, a blend of two types of rye finished in French-oak port barrels and released every fall to eager drinkers and collectors. Coyle likens blending to art; this hybrid approach, he says, is akin to having more colors with which to paint.

From left to right: Barrell Bourbon, A Midwinter Nights Dram whiskey, Mic Drop. Barrell Craft Spirits/High West Distillery/Mic Drop

Wherever you look in the NDP market these days, you’ll see a new transparency that feels radical, whether it’s the hyper-limited Mic Drop—its website diligently recounts every minute decision that went into the bottle—or the enormous Bardstown Bourbon Company, which literally prints the pedigree of its purchased and blended Discovery series right on the label. Bardstown is sitting on thousands of its own distilled barrels, still too young to use, but Dan Callaway, the company’s VP of product development, says that even when its barrels come of age, Bardstown will continue to purchase whiskey for blending. “Discovery series is an opportunity to create something new and special,” he says. “Our story is our team. We want to show people the whole process.”

Nicolas Palazzi, creator of Mic Drop, puts it more plainly still: “We stand for non-bullshit products,” he says. “To be honest, it doesn’t sound very radical to me.”