I had a very good time in the Dominican Republic. Tho I did not get to visit the distillery at Barceló, my hotel had a wide variety of Brugal for me to try, as well as some bottles at Duty Free which were surprisingly significantly cheaper than the US. I also had a lot of mamajuana. While there were some commercial brands, by and large, the mamajuana all around was homemade stuff. It didn’t seem fully homemade as you can buy the spices and herbs in a pack, but then it seemed like they added their own rum, wine, and honey.

Rum and mamajuana are products intimately tied with the Dominican Republic, and Brugal Leyenda seems like an attempt at intersecting the two. Aged, woody, and sweet, it doesn’t say that it’s a rum anywhere on the bottle. In fact, unlike some more deceptive brands, they do a pretty good job of explaining rum to laymen. Leyenda is a blend of 80% double-aged rum and 20% Oloroso sherry from Jerez, Spain.

I’ll be comparing it to Ron Zacapa 23, as that is another flagship Spanish-style rum that seems to go a bit heavy on the sherry.

Review

Smell

Pretty strong smell of wine, perhaps an apple brandy. Also a strong smell of sweetness and oak. However, Zacapa smells lighter, sweeter, and more vanilla. It has a touch of red wine scent, while Leyenda is heavy with it, and actually reminds me of sweet aged balsamic vinegar that I had in Italy.

Taste

Leyenda is very sweet. Woody oak, vanilla, sweet, and smooth. I’d compare it to a Port wine, except extra fortified. In my original notes I wrote that this was definitely aged in wine casks, because at the time, I didn’t yet know that it was 20% wine. But I would not say it’s undrinkably sweet. It’s more like a desert Port wine. It’s not super complex, but it’s fun, sweet, has a nice body, it’s fruity from the red wine, and overall the oaky rummy profile of the rum feels very similar to other Brugal expressions. This tastes like Doble Reserva with a splash of wine.

Zacapa, on the other hand, is just on another level. It tastes much more like rum, with oak, vanilla, coconut, but far less woody and far less wine, and has a deeper, richer rum flavor with honey notes. I’d say the amount of wine taste in Zacapa is more like a tasteful note, while in Leyenda, it’s more like this is a heavily fortified wine. I’d say Leyenda is more bold in every way. More sweetness, more wine taste, more wood taste, and if you love mamajuana, I bet that you would like this as well. But, I am not going to lie, this isn’t a bad drink, but it’s not something that I really prefer to drink, except maybe in some very specific mood.

Verdict 5.5/10

I think I might have to bump up Zacapa 23 from 6/10 to 6.5/10, it’s actually better than I remember. Brugal Leyenda, on the other hand, I would say is worth a shot, but it’s not something that I think I would reach for. It’s very nice for what it is, but it’s basically more of a Port than a rum, and don’t get me wrong, I have had some great Ports, it’s just not exactly even in the same competition as, say, Zacapa 23, or Cuban rums. 5.5/10

Also, I did some research later, and in my initial research, I just figured that Oloroso sherry was sweet, but it’s not. It’s a dry red wine. So if rum is naturally dry, and this wine is dry, and they claim no additives, then why is it so sweet? Like, it’s sweeter than Zacapa, and I look at Zacapa and think “ok guys, were those PX wine casks really empty when you added the rum?”