I really wanted to give this an impartial review, and I got to taste some Puntacana Club rum in the Dominican Republic, and my thoughts were that it’s a sweet mediocre rum that is way more expensive than its quality calls for. But I only got to try a few, so I bought some sample bottles at a gift shop. I figured it’s a serious enough rum company to actually warrant me to sit down and give them a review. I’ve seen their rums in the US! It’s, in their words, Rum for Connoisseurs.

I also wanted to quickly share the description of the rum from their website. Keep in mind that they also have a 25 year rum (or rather, “25 year”, in quotes, rum) and yet this is what they say about their Kraken knockoff:

The house of Oliver’s most daring rum. The most unique and exclusive rum in the whole range, everything about this rum is an accomplishment. Aged in oak barrels that contained Amontillado sherry, the special way it was made make it a unique product in the rum category. Aimed at those who seek exclusivity and uniqueness.

Story

Oh boy. What can I say about this rum? First off, look at the bottle. Looks really black, huh? I actually went and got my bottle of Kraken to compare this rum to, since I figured it was going to try to copy Kraken. But then I actually took my black rum out of the sample box and, well… you ain’t black! It is of an amber hue that is pretty much the same as all of the other rums from Puntacana. Or could it be a confession that all of their rums are equally dyed?

And as if that wasn’t enough, they disappoint you again by only making the rum 34% ABV. So, regardless, it wouldn’t be a good comparison to Kraken. At 47% ABV, it’s a full 38% higher in alcohol content. 34% ABV is… not even legally rum! 37.5% ABV is pretty anemic, but I guess that wasn’t watered down enough. God forbid the stupid tourists that buy this crap (and I am not excluding myself from this category in any way) think that it’s not “smooth”.

Oh, and just to even things out, they bamboozle me again by making the bottles out of thick glass where the rum portion is completely in the little window in the box, and everything obscured by the box is just glass and air. And, the volume and ABV were completely obscured in the black box. I consider myself more informed and careful than average, and this totally blindsided me. 50mL is not a huge amount, but at least it’s enough to get a good sample. Pour it in my NEAT glass, get a good nose, take a sip, and use the rest for one or two half-size cocktails. But 20mL? God forbid I can actually get a decent sample of your severely watered down rum! This is some advanced tourist entrapment! The best scientists at Oliver & Oliver must have put in overtime to come up with this trick!

Also I will name and shame. I got my whole Oliver & Oliver experience at Taino Gifts in Punta Cana, and there’s more to the story in later reviews…

Notes:

Base fermentable: Some retail sites say molasses, but their official site says miel de la caña (sugarcane honey) which is a sugarcane juice syrup. Since they buy bulk rum from Trinidad (definitely from Angostura, which is molasses) and from Panama (highly likely from Varela Hermanos, which is sugarcane juice), as well as from various other countries, it’s probably a blend of both.

Origin: Rums from Nicaragua, Colombia, Panama, and Trinidad, aged and blended in the Dominican Republic by Oliver & Oliver Internacional with, supposedly, a 25 year old mother rum. This part seems the most consistent across all sources.

Aging: The claim is that it is aged in 12-year solera in French oak that have been charred at 200C for 10-15 minutes, and finished in PX casks, blended with rums aged 1-10 years from Nicaragua and Colombia, as well as older rums from Panama and Trinidad. But this is the one where the information is the most inconsistent. I’ve seen some claims of Amontillado casks, for instance. I am not sure why the bottles at the store say “15 year solera” when they don’t even claim that in the marketing or the spec sheet? Tastings.com, in their review, listed it as “aged 3 years or less” likely due to the fact that it can’t claim an age statement.

Additives: European retailers indicate that it is colored with caramel, and contains vanilla, herbs, spices, and sherry. So it’s almost a mamajuana? And their own site says that it’s triple chill-filtered. No information on sugar.

Please take the above information with a very large grain of salt, as Oliver & Oliver is not known for their transparency in terms of their ingredients, additives, and production, and retail sites and their distributor have wildly different claims about how it’s made and what’s in it. Not a good sign.

spec sheet (but take this with a grain of salt too because the ABV doesn’t even match)

Review

Smell

Brown sugar, caramel, and oak. Not much too complex happening on the nose.

Taste

Extremely sweet. Overwhelmingly sweet. I can’t taste if there’s herbs or wine in the rum. I am pretty sure there isn’t. My bet is that the listing that says there’s spices and sherry added is incorrect. It honestly tastes like Puntacana Club Muy Viejo, but with even more sugar. Which is unfortunate, because maybe the underlying rum flavor could very well be almost average, but it’s just drowned in sugar. The positive, I guess, is that it’s not actively gross like Kraken. But, it’s anemic, overly sweet, no body, no finish, barely any flavor or complexity.

Verdict 3.5/10

I wonder what fraction of a teaspoon of that claimed “25 year old mother rum” actually makes it into a 700mL bottle of Puntacana Club Black. Probably about as much as the fraction of this “Dominican” rum that actually came from the Dominican Republic.

Cynicism aside, at 34% ABV, it’s already starting in a hole. Water down Bacardi Gold, add a ton of sugar, and you might get close to this, except Bacardi would still have more flavor. The rum underneath is not complex, not interesting, just… sweet. And I say that as someone who enjoys a sweeter rum. It’s not disgusting, it’s not undrinkable, it’s just kind of pointless. 3.5/10