This Jamaican rum from Worthy Park contains entirely pot still rum aged for a minimum of 4 years. Rum-Bar is essentially Worthy Park’s value brand, and a value it is; although it’s only bottled at 40% ABV, it comes in a liter bottle, and we picked up ours for $27.99. Admittedly, the aesthetics of the bottle leave something to be desired, although I have it on good authority that in my market Rum-Bar Gold will be replaced by the new Worthy Park Select, which still has a minimum age statement of 4 years, but contains some aged up to 12 and adopts the more elegant bottle design of Worthy Park 109.

In the lab we measured the density to be 0.947g/cc, which indicates no dosage; this is unsurprising as Worthy Park is known for turning out additive free rum, and the (very small) text on the back of the bottle notes: “…no additives are used in the blending of this rum. This is authentic Jamaican Rum”.

On the nose Rum-Bar Gold delivers Worthy Park’s calling card: tons and tons of banana. Fresh banana, overripe banana, banana bread. If you dig in there’s some coconut, oak and mild floral notes there too. The palate is also (and I cannot stress this enough) really banana forward. The main character is joined by other overripe tropical fruits: pineapple and mango. There’s also a bit of allspice, and some warmer toffee notes. The finish is moderate, but stronger than expected for a standard 40% ABV. It’s primarily spices like ginger and allspice, but of course there’s still that banana wafting around.

In our blind tasting we thought Rum-Bar Gold was pretty good as a neat sipper (7.3/10) and great as a mixer (8.1/10); Rum-Bar manages to be very pleasant and simultaneously very interesting; in a mixed drink it almost does the job of a banana liqueur, and in a glass it provides a really affordable way to dive deep into the profile of one of Jamaica’s best distilleries.