Ron Espero Reserva Exclusiva

Ron Espero – which roughly translates to “Rum of Hope” hails from the Dominican Republic and is bottled in Panama.  They have a fairly uninspiring English language website and the rum is imported into Europe by Haromex Development GmbH.

The website has only been going since 2013.  I’ve no doubt they’ve been producing rum for longer than that.  I think that this may well be the first English language review of any of their rums.  Online the rum seems to be getting widely ignored.

This is the most expensive of the three rums they produce.  It is a 12 year old solero blended rum.  I usually opt for a companies cheaper efforts when I’m first trying a new brand.  In this case at £25.95 with their other rum £23 and £25 respectively I thought I may as well go for the best.

Despite being Reserva Exclusiva (think Diplomatico) I was disappointed to find that the attractive bottle had a metallic screw cap.  I was even more dismayed when I found I had to cut some of the thread with a knife as they had broken and I was left with the unopen spinning bottle top.  I hate that and it wasn’t a good start.  The glass bottle however is very substantial and the bottle is fairly distinctive.   The website continued a strong brand identity which I always like.

The rum is a darkish brown colour.  It doesn’t give off a very strong smell initially.  As a result I was expecting a light tasting rum despite the rums deep colour.  Upon tasting neat the rum almost immediately causes the tongue to tingle with what tastes a lot like aniseed.  A further taste confirms this as the rum almost numbs the mouth.  This isn’t unpleasant if you like aniseed as I do but I would imagine this wouldn’t sit well with many people.

Upon mixing with a little cola the rum reveals a lot of smokiness along with the aniseed which is muted by the cola.

I had hoped I was getting myself a bit of a bargain with this rum an undiscovered gem perhaps.  In all honesty I can’t see this rum really going anywhere.  The packaging is okay, the rum is okay, there’s just so much competition that I can’t really see this rum turning up any trees.

With a bit savvy marketing and maybe a toning down of the aniseed flavour maybe they could have something but I doubt they have the clout to be honest.  They’re probably just pleased to have a European Importer.

This is far from being a bad rum but it just doesn’t stand out.  It’s an average mixer and an average sipper.

 

Ron Abuelo Anejo 7 Years Anos

After noticing the “Ron De Jeremy” Panamanian rum whilst browsing on Amazon, I felt the need to try a Panamanian rum.  There are only so many Bajan, Jamaican or Cuban rums you can try before you think they all taste fairly similar and you aren’t really getting anything different for your money.

I’m someone who frequently changes drinks and I’m always looking to try something new.

With that in mind I decided to change my usual thought processes when ordering rum online and broke just about all of my rules with my most recent consignment.  The Ron Abuelo is a rum I would never normally buy.  It comes in an unsexy bottle, it has “ron” in its actual name and whilst it   got some decent reviews from a couple of rum reviewers the man on the street seemed to be totally ignoring it.

As mentioned already the rum is from Panama and the company has been going since 1908 and produce a wide variety of spirits not just rum.  I won’t bore you with too much information as the company website is here if you wish to investigate.

The packaging of the bottle is similar to a red wine but the best comparison to be made is to that of a port.  The rum is around £25 and for that price you get a decorative cardboard sleeve and the satisfaction of a very decent corked closure.  I don’t like the fact that the bottle looks like a cheap bottle of Spanish plonk but the sleeve and cork almost make up for that.

On pouring the rum is much lighter than I was expecting.  This is probably because I was expecting a thick viscous port to come out of the bottle.  The bottle is dark so you really have no way of knowing until you pour.  The rum itself is similar to a Venezuelan rum its not quite as smooth as the Diplomatico Reserva Exclusiva but its a little smoother than that companies Anejo (which is similarly priced), to be fair it should be smoother as it is a few years older.  The rum is bottled at 40% abv.

The rum is very fairly priced and very pleasant.  Despite being only a 7 year old I think its more suited to someone who sips rum.  The cola seemed to take away some of the flavour of this rum.  Personally with this in mind I think its too good to mix in cocktails.  If you like your spirits neat or with a little ice this bottle may well be a very good introduction to the world of sipping rum.