I bought this a month ago, and at this point, I’ve already decided that I am a rum fan, and I was going to a memorial day house party BBQ, so I decided to swing by a liquor store to get some rum for the party. However, I still don’t really have a sense for what rums are good, except I try to avoid Bacardi, Captain Morgan, Malibu… you know, the cheap generic stuff. Unfortunately, a lot of liquor stores devote a lot of space to every liquor, except for rum; all they have for rum is… yep— Bacardi, Captain Morgan, Malibu. Except, there was one I had never seen before: Bumbu, (edit: advertised as) a rum from Barbados. I was curious.

Review

Smell

Smells very strongly like vanilla extract

Taste

So, here’s the thing… I have had a taste of Myers’s Jamaican rum at a party last December (my first time having a Jamaican pot-still rum), and I remember thinking how curious this is. It has notes of like… a molasses, almost banana flavor. If I could describe it like an amuse bouche to funky rum, I would describe Bumbu as an abuse bouche. It tastes like a banana laffy taffy. I like a sweeter rum, and this was offensively sweet. I tried squeezing in some lime juice to make a sort of daiquiri, and the vanilla and banana flavors just didn’t go well with lime. I tried mixing it with diet pepsi, and it was drinkable, but barely. I know that Malibu has a banana flavored rum, and I have never tried it, but I would imagine that it would be similar to this.

Verdict 3/10

(Edited from 4/10 on 12/12/25)

I can’t say that it’s undrinkable, because I really did try to make it work. But, I would literally rather have some cheap Bacardi to work with, because at least it tastes like nothing, while Bumbu has too much going on.

Drinking it chilled, I give it a 4. Not pleasant. Very sweet. I could drink it, but I just really would prefer something else.

Mixed with pepsi zero, it’s still a 4. The flavors of Bumbu just don’t go with anything. They barely go with each other, and it’s just so damn sweet.

December 12, 2025 Update:

Not much more to add, I am just amending the score down to a 3 to reflect my new scoring system.