Given our track record if we led with the fact that we’ve yet again bought a twelve dollar rum you could already expect the subsequent review. One of pain and woe, of price not being worth the wincing and sugar and awfulness. Put that aside though, because while yes Kaniche has a fault, it’s not as glaring as you might think, and given some other aspects – it might not even be a concern.
Truly though this is an outstanding rum. Yes there are multiple aspects of it that could be better, but really for such a low price that might be asking too much. Also by virtue of their literature, it’s not like they have much to say about this themselves. All we’ll say then is that if you are looking for a nice gold rum, you are in luck here.
What they Say: “Distilled in Barbados”
Taste: 7.5 – Starts off nice and not unlike salted caramel, with an almost black peppery like spice flavor. It’s really rather tasty.
Aftertaste: 4.0 – Here you get some more mellow and sugary caramel, but unfortunately the second half of this is rather disgusting. The rum becomes too much and you just taste a horrible jumbled mess of sugar and ethanol
Burn/Smooth: 4.0 – There is no outright burning, which is nice. With a little warming this likely could make some nice hot toddy’s too. However that tail end of the aftertaste means this isn’t going down smooth – you are very likely to make a face, and not one that sells this.
Aroma: 6.5 – It smells like the most rum-y made rum – which is odd because most rums smell actually quite bad or too sweet. In short this has the smell rums should have (ignoring spiced rums which obviously smell like delicious spices) There’s certainly a whiff of ethanol to the aroma here, but overall it’s not bad.
Honesty: 6.5 – Nothing to say, but therefore nothing to say while you’ve put your head up your own ass. The overall design is – okay. The crazy cut kindergarten scissor outline is a bit weird, and the font is like they somehow went for a weird version of Papyrus. Overall though it works out with just some minor crimes.
Mixability: 7.25
W/ Rocks: 6.0 – You thankfully lose some of the impact of that aftertaste which is good. While that salt and pepper caramel becomes more prevalent, overall it’s not exactly improved here by the ice. Different sure, but not better.
Rum and Coke: 8.5 – You know – especially with a bit of lime – that’s pretty damn good. That salt&pepper flavor really works nice in the cola. It’s nowhere near too sweet, and has a load of flavor, which as mentioned the additional lime citrus really balances it all out. Just really fucken good.
Value: 7.5 – Well this is interesting. Because while the flavor of this is distinct it ‘seems’ like it’d be hard to recommend to folks, but then you get hit with the price tag and think – wait only 12? Yeah this ‘artisanal’ rum could have been like so many and charged near double or triple – but 12. As such – it’s not easy to get a good cuba libre at a lower price, so yeah points are awarded.
Google Shop Average: $12
Website: (none we could find, feel free to hit us up in comments)
Reviewer Scores:
BuffaloJern: 7.0
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Metric Score: 43.25/70 |+| Metric Average: 6.18 |+| Reviewer Average: 7.0
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Final Thoughts: This was tough not to give it that extra 0.5, but then any rum we do a review of and make a face we rather wouldn’t show to anyone else can’t exactly go into the pantheon of the greats. However looking at the tail of the tape – that really is the singular fault here. No wank, tastes great (more filling), mixes well, and costs far too little. We typically have not kept a ‘well’ golden rum in stock because often reviews just fill that void, but if we did – it’d be Kaniche. Which for us – there’s really no higher praise – score aside.
