This past weekend I attended the NY Rum Fest for the first time, and it was a fantastic experience. Imagine a conference room lined with about 30 tables, each representing a different company, and some offering upwards of 20 different bottles for tasting. Obviously, I could not try everything; even pacing myself and only taking small sips, I feel like I made it through less than a third of the bottles on offer. I will definitely be coming back next year.

I took plenty of notes, but I wanted to start by spotlighting one company in particular: Nicoya. Their table stood out because Pierre Bardinet pulled a Hampden Estate and actually brought Nicoya’s individual unaged marques for us to taste.

Nicoya currently produces three marques: aguardientes of cane juice, cane syrup (aka cane honey), and molasses. Instead of using the much more common continuous multi-column setup, each ferment is batch-distilled in copper pot stills and then re-distilled in a copper column. These components are ultimately blended to create both their Blanco and Añejo expressions. Pierre let me try all three marques. I won’t rate them since they’re not for individual sale, but I wanted to share my feelings about them.

Cane juice: Immediately reminiscent of Haitian cane spirits like Clairin Sajous. Vegetal, peppery, fruity, and sharp.

Cane syrup: This one was more complex. There was still some vegetal notes, but now it was more deep, robust, and smoky, like Clairin Le Rocher, or Caña Criolla from The Rums of Mexico, with an aftertaste of buttered popcorn.

Cane molasses: Interestingly, on the nose and initial palate, this one was the most subdued. Just typical notes of column still rum, but it had a deep umami note to it that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

After trying each individually, I asked to have all three mixed together. The result was like an orchestra, where the cane juice was the top note, cane syrup was the melody, and molasses was the bass. Then I asked for more molasses because you always need more bass. It was actually incredible, and had it not been near the end of rum fest with a few more tables to visit, I would have stayed and played around with the blending some more. It was so fun! What other producer lets you taste cane juice, cane syrup, and molasses rums all produced from the same place in the exact same way, side-by-side?

Review

For context, this is happening at a rum fest and rum is being poured and carried around all around me, so subtle aromatic notes can easily be lost.

Smell: Way lighter than the aguardiente blend that I just nosed. Compared to that, it doesn’t really have much going on.

Taste: I did swirl water around in my mouth between trying the three marks and these samples, but still, it’s not exactly a fresh start. Even so, this rum definitely came off as noticably more dialed back compared to the marks. It’s pretty light, and it has notes of oak, vanilla, caramel, and molasses, and less grassy brightness that you get in the Blanco. It leans more like a typical “Spanish-style” gold rum, and it’s also noticably sweet, but not terribly so.

Verdict 6/10

This review partly exists because I wanted to share my experience at Nicoya’s table, and also there are basically no reviews for this rum. I think that neither bottling is fantastic, but at $20, they are competitive with Appleton Signature for value, which I consider to be a benchmark of budget rum. I gave Appleton Signature a 6.5/10, which is what I gave the Blanco version, but the Añejo was a bit more subdued. Still pretty good for an aged $20 rum.