While visiting one of my local shops, I found this rum on sale. After a less than positive experience with a different Myers bottling, I was wary of having a repeat experience. However, the price was right, and after two years of curiosity, it was time to review this one. The rum for this bottling is molasses based continuous column and pot still blends sourced from the National Rums of Jamaica (Clarendon and Long Pond). There is painfully little information about the rum, but we can surmise that for it to be called “Jamaican rum,” it must have been aged in an oak barrel for a minimum of one year. Then the rum was finished for an unspecified amount of time in Sazerac Rye barrels and blended to 43% ABV.
Appearance
The bottle is a standard, heavy 750 ml prohibition era medicine glass bottle flask design that has a wooden cap holding a synthetic cork. The front label provides a small amount of information with bars that read “Single Barrel” and “Hand Selected Jamaican Rum.” A small white label states that it was finished in Sazerac rye whiskey barrels. The back label is devoted to the bar code and legal requirements. They did not even provide a marketing blurb.
The rum has a dark walnut color (painfully obvious artificial color) in the bottle and takes on a bit of a ruby hue in the glass with greenish-brown highlights around the edges. Swirling the liquid creates a medium band that thickens and releases one wave of fast-moving legs and a second slower wave that slides down the glass as the band beads and evaporates.
Nose
The aroma leads with a dark molasses note that relents, letting notes of dark chocolate, vanilla, and baking spices manifest, making me think of rum cake. Notes of cooked bananas drift in briefly, a tiny nip of clove, and oddly, no strong immature oak notes of any kind are found.
Palate
The first sip delivers a strong note of caramelized vanilla, a bite of alcohol, and a brief pop of pepper. Additional sips revealed a flavor that reminding me of maple syrup covering banana pancakes. As the rum begins to fade, there is a brief dance of raw ginger, black pepper, and a whisper of rye whiskey. As the flavors swirl, the original sweet caramelized vanilla notes come in and linger briefly before the finish is complete.
Review
As mentioned, I approached this review with a certain level of curiosity and caution and felt rewarded with an intriguing Jamaican rum experience. The lack of information concerning this product and other Myers’s rums in Sazerac’s portfolio is annoying. They are trying to sell rum by its brand name reputation alone, which is fine for someone like me who has been around a while and experienced the original pre-Diageo products, the over-adulterated Diageo incarnation, and now a step back towards what reminds me of the original product. However, what about the new drinkers and cocktail makers entering the world? They simply need to do better.
Myers’s has always been engineered to be an ingredient in a cocktail and not a sipping rum. It was quite reliable in this role until Diageo purchased it, and then made (in my opinion) a series of poor decisions that weakened the brand. When Sazerac bought the brand in 2018, some saw it as a rescue purchase that would hopefully save the rum from extinction. This rye finish rum provides a little twist to a familiar flavor profile and works well in a variety of classic and modern tropical cocktails.
