Don Papa Rum 70cl - 40% ABV Dark Aged Sipping Rum: Distilled in Sugarlandia, Philippines | Expertly Matured in American Oak | Great for Cocktails

Product Information

Well that depends on how you plan to drink it. The tropical flavours of white rum are typically used to make mojitos, or simply enjoyed with a splash of juice. While a good quality dark rum is better suited to sipping, just as you might enjoy whisky. I might have been less snarky if they had simply labelled it as a spiced rum (which it is) instead of some kind of aged artisinal product (which it isn’t).

It hails from Sugarlandia (I kid you not), Phillipines and Don Papa is a tribute to Papa Isio. His legend was instrumental to the independence of the island during the Revolution of the 1890s. The figure of Don Papa on the bottle is inspired by Papa Isio. On the nose Don Papa 7 Year Old delivers huge wafts of cheap Cream Soda. It smells a lot like a vanilla and lemonade ice cream float. Only with a bag of sugar added just to make sure its plenty sweet enough.A small child would like the smell of this particular drink. It smells like the inside of a traditional sweet shop. Sherbet, artificial sweeteners, liquid candy. Rum you say? Not on this nose. The presentation and advertising and marketing of this rum is all about fancy bottle and label design, gorgeous visuals, and words to make you giddy with anticipation. It nails all aspects of those. Everything else is secondary, except the rum itself, which is tertiary. Dive deeper into the bouquet and you’ll start to realise that the rum is much like a good Italian wine in the sense that it has a lot more to offer than what is immediately apparent. Sweet caramel notes will start to make an appearance, alongside an earthier note of cedar. All told, the bouquet reveals that this is a rum that is far more complex than many of its ilk.

In Italian wine terms, you can think of Sugarlandia as being like an enormous vineyard. Only instead of begin dedicated to the vine, this land is dedicated to the growth of sugar cane. But much as we see with vineyards, Sugarlandia has many remarkable properties that are imbued into the sugar grown on it, making all of the products of Sugarlandia stand out from the crowd. An easy comparison – to suggest this is a good rum would be like suggesting Cherry Lambrini is a good wine. No one in the wine community would put up with such nonsense so why the hell does rum put up with bullshit like this? Why will spirit professionals not speak up about this complete and utter insult to rum? Heads in the trough is why. Money, money, money. Wankers.Sugarlandia has almost become a place of legend on the Negros island. It is often described as an odd-land in which unexpected and unexplainable things often occur. As such, the legends surrounding Sugarlandia, and by extension the growing legend of Don Papa, have become a crucial part of the island’s rum industry. Wether you like it or not, Don Papa has helped MASSIVELY in getting people to understand that rum can be more than that. And it was on the palate that its true adulterated nature became fully apparent. The mouthfeel is where it started – it literally felt like a soda, complete with the slight scrape of what could charitably be called bite but which I’ll call chamberpot-brewed rubbing alcohol. Again that yoghurt taste was there, this time without the creaminess, the raspberries being replaced by a peach or two…and the vanilla and sprite and coke were still there in abundance, finishing the job of ruining what had been an unremarkable, unprepossessing liquid that wasted too much of my time. There was no finish to speak of, which was unsurprising, given how dosed and choked up this thing is with so much that isn’t rum. Even Pyrat’s XO would probably shudder at what the company did here (while taking notes).

The nose is very familiar – huge wafts of raspberry flavoured bubblegum. Notes of sweet artificial saccharin. Cherry flavoured boiled sweets and a slight hint of some kind of spice trying to break out but its just overpowered by the artificial confected notes.

If I get diagnosed with diabetes or if my palate gets ruined by this in the long run, can I ask 88 Bamboo to help with my recovery? Just to confuse matters, there’s also spiced rum, which is blended with additional fruit and spices. How we test rum Another worrying thing is this trend might discourage new and/or smaller rum producers from putting out quality rum. Instead it might persuade them into making these dishonest rums that cut corners. Afterall, starting small brands and/or distilleries to flip to larger companies has become a business model ever since craft distilling became more of a thing, especially in the US.