This pot still rum from Worthy Park in Jamaica gave us strong notes of banana, with subtler hints of cereal, apple, varnish, allspice, coconut, toffee, and oak.

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.