Saint James Paille Rhum Agricole
While historically significant, Saint James Rhum Paille, bottled at 40% ABV, is a simple and light rum with honey, apple, and grassy notes. It performs better in cocktails than neat and is somewhat underwhelming as a representation of the brand.
Worthy Park Special Cask Series Port 2010
This 12 year old Port Cask finish from Worthy Park in Jamaica is clearly a good rum, but how does it stack up as a work of cask finish auteurship?
Rhum J.M Terroir Volcanique
Rhum J.M Terroir Volcanique is a three-year-old rhum agricole that highlights the distillery’s terroir and cooperage program. While tasty and interesting, it’s particularly notable for representing Rhum J.M’s innovative approach to rum-making, focusing on terroir and cask charring, and delivering quality at an accessible price point.
Trois Rivières Ambré Rhum Agricole
This one year old rhum agricole from La Mauny made us say “go on girl, give us nothing”.
Rhum J.M Gold
This lightly aged rhum agricole from Rhum J.M in Martinique is a clean tasting workhorse that performs better than many more premium positioned rums.
Appleton Estate Hearts Collection 1993
This long aged installment in the Appleton Hearts series is deep, fruity, and flavorful, but avoids being over oaked even after 29 years in a cask.
Rhum J.M. Jardin Fruité
This member of Rhum J.M’s L’Atelier des Rhums is a pretty classic expression of agricole fruity-herbaceousness, but probably the least successful of the line’s three rums.
Trois Rivieres Cuvee Du Moulin
This 3 year old rhum agricole from La Mauny in Martinique is a straightforward and approachable expression of its category.
Appleton Estate Hearts Collection 2002
This 20 year old installment in the Appleton Estate Hearts line knows who it is with plenty of flavorful, aged fruity funk.
We Tasted 19 Non-Alcoholic Rums; These Were Our Favorites
Last year we had a lot of fun blind tasting a lineup of 9 NA rums and ranking the best, but there were a few we couldn’t get in time, and now a year later a couple new options have come to market. So we’re back to fill in the gaps and see if a new NA rum champion emerges.
Habitation Velier Hampden 2016 OWH
This lower-ester Hampden is an tasty installment in the Habitation Velier series. While it’s tame by Hampden standards there’s still plenty of fruity-spicy flavor from nose to finish.
Bare Zero Proof Rum Blanco
This non-alcoholic rum from Bare Zero brings an interesting funkiness to the NA light rum format, but is more successful as a mixer than a spirit to sip neat.
Caleño Light and Zesty
Light and Zesty is a non-alcoholic rum-inspired spirit with a fresh, fruity nose and palate and a light finish.
Caleño Dark and Spicy
Dark & Spicy is a rum-inspired non-alcoholic spirit from Caleño that’s tasty, but fails to live up to its name.
Philters Ruhm
This non-alcoholic rum from Philters has a spice-forward profile and works both served neat and mixed.
Ronsin
The non-alcoholic rum from Espadafor is an absolute acid bomb.
Arkay Dark Rum
This non-alcoholic rum from Arkay is full of fire but lacking in flavor.
Clean Co Clean R Spiced Rum Alternative
This non-alcoholic rum from Clean Co avoids the worst of the common NA pitfalls, but fails to stand out or taste particularly like rum.
Ish Caribbean Spiced Spirit
This non-alcoholic rum from Ish utilizes a novel dealcoholization method, and is itself quite novel. While it’s a bit challenging as a neat sipper, it shows up nicely in cocktails and captures a funkiness elusive to most NA rums.
Seir Hill Biscane Rum-Inspired Non-Alcoholic Spirit
This non-alcoholic rum from Seir Hill let us down, and while it didn’t taste great, it avoided some of the worst failures of zero proof.