The non-alcoholic rum from Espadafor is an absolute acid bomb.

There’s very little to be learned online about Ronsin; even on the website mentioned on the bottle (Espadafor), there’s no mention of this brand. It does seem clear it was made in Granada, Spain, and that it’s attempting to imitate a cane spirit profile. Other than these two facts, we really went into our tasting blind.

On the nose Ronsin has a very candied character. It smells like fruity gummies, and green apple warheads. On the palate the warheads comparison is even more apt, because this guy is positively mouth puckering. Tons of malic acid, green apple, and grape jolly rancher. The finish is light and short, leaving a bit of fruitiness lingering.

In our blind taste test we thought it was okay as a neat sipper (6.9/10) and pretty good mixed in a daiquiri (7.9/10). I find these rankings to be a bit misleading though, as, first of all, almost anything tastes good mixed with fresh lime juice and sugar (a common problem rating daiquiris), but secondly because the extreme sourness of the rum meant the daiquiri was truly out of balance.

Finding your “zing” is common problem faced by all non-alcoholic spirits, and while a little burn is nice, many overly rely on acid or a capsaicin-like spice that can be aggressive neat, and difficult to balance in a drink. Ronsin firmly falls into the “overly relies on acid” category. Rum is not sour, and acidity is a poor replacement for the heat of alcohol.

A reasonable objection is that you can rebalance your daiquiri recipe to accommodate the acidity of Ronsin. I would respond respond to this objection in two ways: first, given just how sour this one is, by the time you’re done rebalancing, you may end up with little or no lime juice, leaving you with a fundamentally different drink. But second, the broader point, is that one of the key jobs of a rum substitute is to substitute for rum.

So the resulting conundrum is this: it’s not gross, and not even unpleasant to drink if you’re in the mood for something tart, but it’s a really poor rum. Where does that land it? Unfortunately for Ronsin, this is a rum review.

 

The Superficial: One of the worse bottles of the lineup. While from a few feet away the label looks kind of refined, up close the poor label quality is obvious, and the plastic top looks cheap. Notably it has a flow restrictor similar to the one found on Wray and Nephew, which is strangely endearing to me.

Tags:  Standard Release | Zero Proof