I’ve been looking forward to Flor de Caña rums for a while. It seems like the consensus has been that they are some of the best rums in their genre, but also, they come with a lot of baggage. I wrote more about it on their Wikipedia page.

The company’s history is pretty remarkable. Founded 140 years ago by an Italian entrepreneur, the company was taken over by the Sandinistas, only for them to hold elections and lose, with a relative of the Pellas family getting elected and returning everything. The Pellas family are now the only billionaires in the country and, ironically, have close ties to the socialist military dictator president Daniel Ortega, who confiscated their company decades before. Politics sure makes strange bedfellows.

They faced a number of controversies, like the horrible working conditions that were suspected to be a cause of CDK, a disease that caused the death of half of all males in the town that the sugarcane fields are in (though, to be fair, was not exclusive to FdC), and the working conditions and the use of sick and underage workers drew heavy criticism towards Ingenio San Antonio, the fields that are owned by the Pellas family and supply FdC with molasses. Then there’s the Pellas family (allegedly) using ties to the government to shoot protesters and unionizers, and, worst of all, removing age statements from the bottles, leaving the big number that heavily implies an age statement but doesn’t actually mean anything. The 12, 18, and 25 you see might as well be a 23. They even got sued for it.

But the good news is that things are improving. FdC now claims to be completely sugar-free, it has slowly re-introduced actual age statements, the conditions in the sugarcane fields have reportedly been taken seriously with real measures to address them, and they haven’t (allegedly) shot protesters in almost a decade. Things are looking up!!

Review

Smell: Very bold oak, even more than the 12 year, but less vanilla and floral notes. I just get straight wood aromas.

Taste: Flor de Caña 18 tastes very similar to 12, but just slightly less floral and slightly more oaky and tannic. The oak taste is bolder, deeper, and the traces of floral notes were mostly aged out. I tried it with a few drops of simple syrup, and I don’t think it improved it. It needs to stay its bold, dry, tannic self. I would definitely prefer the 12 in a rum fashioned, and the 18 just the way it is.

Verdict 6.25/10

These are two great rums. In a lot of ways similar, and in some ways different. I would not say that the 18 year old is better or worse, and I rated the 12 year a 6.25/10, so give the same score to the 18. It’s more tannic, more oaky, has a bolder flavor, but does not lend itself to mixing as much. It still feels like it’s missing a little something, but adding sweetness didn’t make it better, so I don’t know. But if I had to sip one or the other and could not add syrup, I would choose the 18. 12 is a bit more versatile, and of course cheaper, and I enjoy that one more in a rum fashioned.