I mean, this is the most obvious Kraken knockoff that I have seen so far. It’s a Total Wine special and it’s cheaper than the real thing, so let’s see how it holds up.

I’ve just been really busy lately so I am picking something up from the backlog. Expect better stuff soon!

Review

Smell

Vanilla extract, caramel, buttered popcorn, sweet, and artificial. But it’s heavily leaning towards vanilla. Kraken smells similar but much lighter on the vanilla.

Taste

I mean… it’s harsh and unpleasant, as expected. Very heavy on vanilla and sweetness. A bit of caramel on the back. It’s not great and definitely kind of fake tasting, but Kraken is somehow worse. Bitter spices, none of which I can really discern, and a syrupy medicinal sweetness. Both do not have very good base rums, but I can deal with a sweet vanilla bomb more than the concoction in Kraken.

Of course, there is a 0% chance you buy these rums for anything but mixing with cola, so I tried them with Pepsi. Unsurprisingly, Jonah’s Curse was also noticably better than Kraken in Pepsi. It makes like a vanilla caramel Pepsi and it’s surprisingly drinkable. Kraken is also improved by being mixed in Pepsi, but it’s still not a flavor that I prefer.

Verdict 4/10

These rums are not really meant to be drunk neat, but I prefer Jonah’s Curse over Kraken. Still, I vastly prefer Coruba, Myers’s, Goslings, even Bacardi Black if I must have a black rum. Kraken is special to me, because it’s the rum I drank during college, and I finished the last of it off for my first review. But now, Kraken is like an old friend that you met again for the first time in years, and you realize that they are actually a total loser. Jonah’s Curse is not good, but it’s better than Kraken.