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 it’s, in their words, Rum for Connoisseurs.

These two rums are pretty similar, so I decided to combine their review.

I also wanted to quickly share the description of Tesoro from their website:

A formidable reserve with an attractive dark golden color and mahogany nuances, with a harmonious aroma and notes of oak, toasted caramel and syrup.

Oh, wait. They just copied Ron Viejo again. Oops. I would pull a description from the spec sheet as well, but Tesoro actually doesn’t have a spec sheet.

Story

Finally. Finally. Puntacana has decided that this rum is elegant enough, supreme enough, worthy enough to meet the bare minimum ABV requirement in the country. Still below the bare minimum in the US, mind you, but it’s finally at the bare minimum ABV for the Dominican Republic and most countries in Europe!

Once again, I want to call them out for 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. At least these ones hit the bare minimum ABV… barely. While 50mL is not a huge amount, 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 don’t want to overlook the fact that Puntacana Silver Dry very obviously had artificial flavors added and almost certainly a heavy addition of glycerin. So, I have no doubt that they have zero issues with adulterating every rum they produce in any way they think they can. It’s like learning that your chef spat in your food last time, and now you are brought another dish from him. Would that color how you view the food? I will be comparing the rums today against Brugal Añejo, but, since they are now 38% ABV, I will not be watering it down for today’s test.

Notes:

Price: The price for this rum in US liquor stores is around $60, but at Taino gift shop, it’s around $160.

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: Cask Cartel says that it’s a blend from five countries. My guess is the same as the rest of the Puntacana Club lineup: bulk rum from Nicaragua, Colombia, Panama, Trinidad, and the Dominican Republic.

Aging: The claim is that it is aged in a solera style, then finished for 4 months in single malt Scotch whisky casks from Scotland’s Tomatin distillery, with either the oldest portion 15 years old, or 15 years is the actual age statement. Claims differ.

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.

Review

Smell

Actually a big difference this time. It still smells sweet with vanilla and oak, but the oak scent is much richer and it has this pleasant toasted caramel scent to it.

Taste

Whoa. Finally some decent flavor. Vanilla, rich oak, toasted caramel. It’s noticably darker than Espléndido, which doesn’t mean much normally, but it is significantly more flavorful. We’re back to being at least as flavorful as Brugal Añejo, while being quite smooth, and as sweet, almost grossly sweet, as Espléndido and Black. Maybe this rum would genuinely be enjoyable if it wasn’t so sweet. There’s greater depth of flavor— maybe not to the level of Brugal 1888 or Extra Viejo, but it’s getting there. A bit longer on the palate too, finishing with nice floral notes. What a shame. I feel like there’s actually something decent in this bottle. Side by side with Barcelo Imperial, it’s almost the same in terms of wood, depth, and richness, but Tesoro is just incredibly sweet.

Verdict 5.25/10

This is not a great rum, but I want to congratulate it for being the first and only rum in my sample pack to break 5/10. The oak is richer, and there’s a caramel flavor that reminds me of a crème brûlée. There’s actual depth and complexity here… just a bit. In a side-by-side with Barceló Imperial, it comes close, but it’s just so sweet. They finally gave me an above average rum at an almost average ABV, and they buried it under additives just to make sure that it’s smooth. I would say Tesoro is a bit more flavorful than Brugal XV and a bit less flavorful than Extra Viejo, and since Extra Viejo is aged 3-8 years, and XV is a blend of rums aged 3-8 years and 2-3 years, I’d say that it tastes like a rum that’s approximately 3-6 years old on average.

In cognac, XO means that the eau-de-vie was aged for a minimum of 10 years. In rum, XO doesn’t mean anything, and I would actually bet a good deal that the average age of this rum is far below ten years. Yes, it’s darker and more flavorful than Espléndido, but I still believe that the color mostly comes from caramel. So is this rum good? It’s good, but oversweetened, overpriced, and why would I buy this when Barceló Imperial, Brugal Extra Viejo, and Brugal Añejo are half the price and better in every way? Half the price in the US, by the way. At Taino gifts, a 700mL bottle will set you back $129.