Why did we do this?

In a word: Dry January. We think it’s a great idea to reset your alcohol tolerance and to give your palate a bit of a break. But alas we’re creatures of habit, and there’s something about sipping a neat pour after work or mixing up a Mai Tai on a weekend that we didn’t want to give up.

The allure of zero proof rums: all of the fun, and none of the hangover! So we cast a wide net to test 9 zero proof rums to see if an alcohol-free alternative would help us stay sober, or just remind us that we’re missing out this month.

We used our standard testing procedure, though we had to adjust a few parameters to make it work for zero proof rums; primarily in the transparency category: most of the information we want to know about regular rums (fermentation time, distillation method) just doesn’t apply to alcohol free alternatives. So instead we were generous with our transparency ratings. One perk of zero proof rums: they have nutritional information! Although most of the important ingredients fall under the all-mighty “natural flavoring” label. In general, we gave points for specifically naming where the product was made, and deducted points for leaving any important information (like if the product is meant to be diluted before consumption) off the bottle.

Are Zero Proof Rums Even a Good Idea?

Before we get into it, I want to call out a few points:

1. None of these really taste like rum. In the US, rum must legally be at least 40% alcohol by volume. These zero proof rums, by definition, are 0% alcohol (actually, a few of them like Strykk and Lyre’s have small amounts, but all are under 1%). While I think many of them do an admirable job of evoking the interesting flavors you can find in rum, none of these would pass for actual rum in a blind taste test. And I don’t think that should be the bar we hold them to.

2. There are lots of other delicious things to drink that aren’t trying to be rum. Maybe the right call is to get into soda during dry January. Or ginger beer. Or shrubs! I love this Pineapple Shrub from Liquor.com, and I think it makes a great highball. On some level, going from drinking rum in December, to drinking zero proof rum in January, is pretty lacking in imagination. That being said, I think some of the zero proof rums we tried are totally worth your time, and can make good drop-in replacements in your favorite cocktails.

Dark Rums

Dark rums seem to dominate the zero proof space; we ended up selecting six, and we could’ve added another two or three to the lineup. Two we meant to include but couldn’t get in time were ArKay Non-Alcoholic Dark Rum and Seir Hill Biscane. Of the rums we tested, more than one was pretty nasty, but several were pretty enjoyable. Here’s what we thought:

White Rums

In general, there seem to be fewer zero-proof white rums on offer. In fact, all the white rums we tasted came from lines that also offered dark rums: Lyre’s, 270º Botanicals, and ArKay. And on some level, it makes sense: even for many rum nerds white (and/or unaged) rums are little more than a vehicle for getting alcohol into a cocktail. They don’t need any distinct flavor themselves, and most of the white rums you’re most likely to find at a supermarket are unlikely to have much (we have to call out that there are so many incredibly tasty and complex white rums, and we’re purely speaking in generalities here).

This makes a zero-proof white rum’s job quite hard: how do you make a drink that is practically water and ethanol, with no ethanol? It’s a difficult needle to thread–do too little and the rum may just taste like water. Do too much on the other hand, and you’ll end up making something putrid. We had white rums that flirted with both of these problems:

Winners and Reccomendations

Dark Rums

There are several dark rums worth your time. If you’re looking for the bottle that we most thought tasted like rum (though I’m not sure that should be your goal) I’d recommend Monday, or at a lower price point and greater availability, Ritual. If you’re looking for a rum that packs a punch and will add a somatosensory kick to a cocktail, check out Strykk Not R*m. If you’re looking for something that strays a little bit further from a classic rum profile, but is absolutely delicious in a snifter or a Mai Tai, try Lyre’s Dark Cane Spirit.

If you’re interested, I would try all three (I wouldn’t recommend getting Ritual and Monday, as they’re fairly close in profile)–they all offer something different, and they’re all compelling in their own way.

White Rums

Thinks look a lot more bleak on the white rum side. While we had fewer chances at success with only 3 contenders, all of them let us down in one way or another. 270º Botanicals was only slightly better than its dark cousin and had very offputting latex notes. ArKay had an interesting burn, but on the nose and palate, it had a very artificial sweetness to it. Lyre’s was delicious neat, but it was so delicate it totally got lost in a cocktail. When push comes to shove if I were to recommend one it would probably be Lyre’s, unless you only plan on mixing and really want a kick, in which case I would recommend ArKay. But if you’re sober-curious and just looking to pick up a single bottle, I would start with a zero proof dark rum.