This pot column blend from multiple Jamaican distilleries gave us notes of banana and baking spice, with hints of chocolate, pie crust, coffee, and rubber.

Myers’s Original Dark Rum is a blend of pot and column still distillates from Long Pond and Clarendon in Jamaica, bottled by Fred L. Myers’s & Son at 40% ABV. It’s difficult to nail down it’s age as it’s a blend of multiple marques (RumRatings claims 9), but while some of it’s definitely aged (RumX claims 4 years) and some of it may be unaged. Myers’s was purchased by Sazerac in 2018, but the publicly visible face of the brand has remained unchanged.

In the lab we measured a density of 0.949g/cc, suggesting less than 5g/cc of dosage if any. In the glass it’s quite dark; even if everything in the bottle spent 4 years in a cask, the hue would still seem to suggest some added coloring.

The nose is pretty robust for 40% ABV; while not incredibly complex, there’s molasses, some banana, and a hint of baking spice, along with some harsher alcoholic notes. On the palate there some chocolate, something baked (pie crust, or graham crackers maybe?) and bit of an industrial rubber note. The finish is light and quick, sticking to a sweetness that leans back into molasses.

In our blind taste test it was just okay as a sipper (6.7/10), but surprised us with great tasting daiquiri (8.6/10) even though a daiquiri may not be the drink this rum is most at home in. Generally when a product is identifiable to the point of iconography, it’s either because the quality is high enough to have fostered a fan base, or because it’s been industrially optimized to the point of ubiquity. While it’s hard not to imagine the latter is true of Myers’s, it was surprisingly serviceable, and actually pretty good when mixed well. It might not have a fan base, but with pretty universal availability, a reasonably flavorful Jamaican profile that plays well in a drink, and price tag that should fit into even a strict budget, I would keep it on the bar instead of Coruba.