This zero proof rum from Monday gave us strong notes of cereal and oak, with subtler hints of oak, caramel, citrus, banana, and decaf coffee.

Drinking zero-proof rum is a bit of a performance art. There are lots of perfectly suitable non-alcoholic beverages out there, but if you’re sipping zero-proof rum on some level you’re trying to pretend that it ***is*** rum. And at the same time, it’s impossible to really believe it. It’s all rather kind of embarrassing: there’s a thing that you like, that you know is bad for you, and you’re trying not to drink it, so you’re going to play dress up. Monday’s solution to this is to make that dress-up look cool as hell. Their almost cryptic art-deco-inspired bottle design suggests that the drinker knows something you don’t. “A cultural shift is underway” the back reads. Yes, the drinker of this bottle definitely knows something you don’t. But *this* drinker will tell all! On the nose you’re met with some wheat-y cereal notes similar to Ritual, but they’re joined by a solvent-like note that demonstrates they figured out how to get a bit of charred oak (or something charred-oak-like) in the bottle. By the second whiff some subtle but very pleasant caramel enters the mix. On the tip of the tongue, it’s pretty mild and texturally pretty thin. As it coats the back of your mouth there’s some baking spice, some subtle citrus, and banana. This is followed by a really pleasant burn that seems to aerate oak and vanilla. My only real gripe is that there’s an artificial coffee note that shows up more as an aftertaste that isn’t particularly pleasant. The back label gives you permission to leave the bottle out of the fridge in any “cool, dry place,” which is good news because you’ll really want to leave this one out on a shelf.