Vinepair: The 30 Best Rum Brands (2023)

Despite its eternal status as the “next big thing” in drinks, rum sales still lag behind multiple other spirits in the U.S., including whiskey, vodka, tequila, and Cognac. Still, there are signs that perceptions of rum are definitively shifting.

Of the almost $2.5 billion U.S. drinkers spent on rum in 2021 — the most recent data available — $229 million went toward “super premium” bottles, the most expensive price segment. Though still a fraction of total sales, this figure is more than 10 times greater than the amount spent on top- shelf rum 15 years ago, proving that folks aren’t only reaching for rum to mix Mojitos and Piña Coladas.

Impressive though that growth is, numbers and spreadsheets do little to capture the depth of the category. With rum brands operating in multiple continents, using two starkly different base ingredients — molasses and fresh cane juice — the main consideration when buying rum is not how much to spend but how you’re looking to enjoy the spirit. The category’s vast range of styles and ever-improving quality ensures that, whether it’s cocktail hour or time for a nightcap, there’s a bottle for every occasion and price point.

This list captures every aspect of that impressive landscape, from single-varietal agricole to transcontinentally aged and blended bottlings. Here are 30 of the best rums to buy right now.

Alambique Serrano Single Blend #1

Alambique Serrano Single Blend #1

Another stunning Oaxacan cane rum, this blend combines Cognac-cask-aged column still distillate with French-oak-aged pot still rum. The duo comes together in perfect harmony, serving up a captivating mix of fruit and umami notes on the nose. The palate then takes a pretty abrupt, but no-less enjoyable, turn, heading in a green, vegetal, earthy direction. This bottle provides further proof that Oaxaca is a serious player in the rum landscape.

Clear as a Bell

These elegant (but electric) digestifs are the perfect pick-me-up, nightcap, and grand finale—all in one glass

BY AMIEL STANEK PHOTOGRAPH BY ISA ZAPATA

Once the dessert forks have been surrendered and everyone swears they couldn’t possibly take even one more bite, a final pour of something special on Thanksgiving just feels right. While I can see the merits of trotting out a bottle of bark-bitter amaro or a mellow bourbon that’s seen a few years in oak, these days I take a different tack. When I want to round out a big meal in style, the choice is clear—a clear spirit, that is. I’m talking about things like eau-de-vie, grappa, mezcal, and clairin. Though these liquors are unique in terms of their geographic origin, composition, and production, they share a brazen character, making them ideal meal-enders. Instead of relying on extensive aging in wood to lend complexity, each spirit tastes unabashedly of the raw materials from which they were distilled and the places where they were made. Heirloom apples. Hand-harvested grapes. Pit-roasted agave. Wild-fermented sugarcane. These idiosyncratic products are as lively and expressive as the day they trickled out of the still; with no time spent in barrels to discipline their rougher edges, flavor has nowhere to hide. And at the end of a rich meal, one sharp sip immediately snaps you back to consciousness, like a cold plunge after a sweaty sauna session.

As is the case with all booze, spirits made with care by small, independent producers are going to be more compelling and often boast a price tag to match. But this is the most special of occasions, after all—when else are you going to break out the good stuff?

CYRIL ZANGS – DOUBLE ZÉRO EAU-DE-VIE DE CIDRE

This bright 100-proof apple brandy is a collaboration between culty Normandy cider maker Cyril Zangs and renowned distillery Calvados Roger Groult. It smells and tastes like a brisk fall stroll through an orchard: ripe fruit, a crisp breeze,

LAURENT CAZOTTES – GOUTTE DE REINE CLAUDE DORÉE

Laurent Cazottes’s eaux-de-vie are the stuff of legend, crafted from small parcels of his own lovingly tended trees and vines. To make this style, Cazottes painstakingly dries and hand-pits greengage plums before fermentation, which yields an extraordinarily concentrated elixir.

CLAIRIN VAVAL RUM

Traditional clairin, perhaps Haiti’s most revered spirit, is rum for mezcal nerds. Made from freshly pressed heritage sugarcane varietals and fermented with no added yeasts, each distillation is a unique expression of terroir. This one, from second-generation producer Fritz Vaval, is sunny and herbaceous, each sip gracefully ping-ponging between delicate flowers and salty funk.

Review: Mic.Drop Rye L20-01 4 Years Old

The latest Mic.Drop release from PM Spirits isn’t a bourbon but a rye, another young gun at 4 years old, sourced from Wilderness Trail Distillery in Danville, Kentucky. Mic.Drop L20-01, which was released late last year, is drawn from just 5 casks of rye distilled in 2015 and bottled in 2020, made from a mash of 56% rye, 33% corn, and 11% barley malt. This is purportedly the first time Wilderness Trail has ever sold barrels of aged whiskey to anyone instead of bottling it themselves.

Well, let’s try it out.

Hearty on the nose, the whiskey has the classic punch of rye, all spice and pepper and dried fruits, impregnated with cedar wood and notes of dill. The palate is quite sweet but also impressively spiced, the notes of green herbs and fresh-cut cedar wood punching with some force. Then comes more of the fruit: Apple fritters in sweet cream. A splash of water does some good, tempering the heat and bringing out more of the barrel influence, including a gentle chocolate note that emerges on the finish. Hints of vanilla and brown sugar calm some of the unruly rye spice notes up top, letting the young but expressive rye do its thing with more of a sense of balance.

In the final analysis, it’s really fun stuff. Tough to justify at nearly $100 a bottle, though, but I presume you can convince yourself through whatever logic you need.

108 proof.

A-

The 25 Best Bourbons of the 21st Century (So Far)

Bourbons have become increasingly collectible. Here are the ones you need to stash away.

There’s much to love about the world’s great Japanese, Scotch and Irish whiskey distilleries. But when it comes to innovation, the wily bourbon producers in the United States have been leading the way for years. In Kentucky and beyond, purveyors of America’s native spirit have refused to let the excellence of their existing products stand in the way of coming up with new ones. And over the last decade and a half, a plenitude of incredible new whiskey with a mash bill of at least 51 percent corn and aged in charred new oak barrels—the house rules for a whiskey to be called a bourbon—has come to market, some from brand-new producers, others new expressions from venerated houses. Fortunately, we’ve got you covered. Here are 25 of the best bourbon releases of the last 20 years.

Mic.Drop.

A delicious blend of 20 different casks of eight-year-old whiskey that offers multifarious flavors highlighted by maple syrup, coconut, cloves, and dark fruit. Mic.Drop. came out of nowhere in 2017 and now resides on the back bars of some of the country’s most prestigious drinking establishments. It’s easy to spot, too, with an eye-catching label designed by comic book artist Chris Batista. The follow up, Mic.Drop.2, was released in 2018 —140 bottles at $450 a pop.

WhiskyCast reviewed - Mic Drop Rye, 93 pts

MIC DROP RYE L20-01

Country: USA
Region: Kentucky
Type: Rye Whiskey
Bottler: PM Spirits
ABV: 54%
Score: 93 points

This 4-year-old Rye was distilled at Kentucky’s Wilderness Trail Distillery using sweet mash fermentation with a mashbill of 56% rye, 33% corn, and 11% malted barley. The nose has good notes of baking spices along with a touch of oak, toasted caramel, cocoa beans, black cherries, and molasses. The taste is very spicy with cinnamon bark, allspice, and clove, while a hint of maple syrup comes out as the spices start to fade along with black cherries, pipe tobacco, and oak. The finish is long with lingering spices and hints of maple syrup, anise, and oak. Excellent!  (December, 2020) 

The 9 Best New Rums to Drink Right Now

Spirits worth sipping.

Distilled from cane juice rather than molasses, rhum agricole is a different beast from standard rum, with a distinctly grassy, vegetal flavor profile. Cane-based rum can be produced anywhere, but the best-known expressions come from the French Caribbean. Pere Labat is from Guadeloupe’s Distillerie Poisson, the oldest distillery on the island of Marie-Galante. The un-aged rum, distilled to the high-octane “local proof” at which the natives like to drink it, is powerfully vegetal on the nose but much less so on the palate, where it displays notes of vanilla and mint in addition to the classic agricole grassiness. It’s surprisingly easy to drink neat or on the rocks and makes for a great change of pace in a daiquiri.