I will be comparing Bacardi Black to Myers’s Original Dark and Goslings Black Seal, since that’s the competition closest in price point and availability. I didn’t add Worthy Park 109 to the comparison since I wanted to give the other rums a fighting chance.

For context, Myers’s Original Dark is a rum from Jamaica, and is a blend of pot still and column still rums and is heavily colored. Goslings Black Seal is a rum from Bermuda, but they do not actually produce the rum. They blend the rum from various countries (including potentially Jamaica), though this is a closely guarded secret. Bacardi Black is a rum from Puerto Rico, and is completely multi-column distilled, so it cannot naturally have the typical pot still flavor you associate with a black Jamaican rum.

Review

Smell

Bacardi Black definitely hits you in the face with alcohol, followed by a slight bit of molasses, and perhaps a very faint hint of funk? But I mostly get alcohol and molasses scent. Goslings doesn’t smell much different, other than the alcohol not quite hitting as hard. Myers’s is completely different, with an actual punch of Jamaican funk with overripe banana as well as sweetness.

Taste

Bacardi Black is not very good neat. It’s just very sour and bitter and industrial tasting. If I dig deep, there’s a strong sweetness along with flavors of black cherry, molasses, and maybe the slightest bit of funk? Or perhaps the contents of a bottle of rum cake flavoring from the spice aisle? Despite the high sugar content, it still comes off more as sour and bitter than sweet. In contrast, Goslings has a similar sour and bitter off-note, but carries considerably more flavor as well. It actually tastes like a proper black rum. Myers’s is yet another step up, with a stronger Jamaican funk and less off-flavors. It’s still not something I would sip, but it’s by far the best of the three.

In a daiquiri, Bacardi Black is just odd. The flavors are just muddy and not right. It’s certainly better than neat, but Bacardi Superior makes a far better daiquiri, hands down. Gosling’s is a slight improvement, but still kind of bitter and not quite right. Myers’s is a genuinely good daiquiri. Once again, it actually carries a strong Jamaican funk that the others just lack.

But a daiquiri is meant for light rums. If you’re drinking black rum, chances are, it’s in a rum and coke. I mixed them 3:1, and the Bacardi Black rum and coke is like a match made in… Kenosha, Wisconsin. So, not heaven and not hell, just servicable and unremarkable. This might be the only scenario where Bacardi Black might have the slightest edge over Superior. It’s like a black cherry coke. I would definitely say that Myers’s and Goslings are improvements over Bacardi Black, but in a coke, they really don’t have the assertive flavor to overcome the soda, so all 3 just made passable rum and coke, though I prefer the Goslings and Myers’s ones over the Bacardi Black.

And finally, just to cover every base, even the ones no one asked to cover, how do these three dark rums fare in a single-rum Mai Tai? Of course, because I made my own orgeat, squeezed fresh lime, and used a good orange curacao, not even Bacardi Black could ruin it. It just sort of disappears and makes an unremarkable Mai Tai. Still a better Mai Tai than Cutwater, at least. Myers’s is somehow also not good in a Mai Tai, with its assertive flavors of molassesy caramel and burnt rubber being noticable enough to make it taste slightly off. Gosling’s is just better than the other two, mostly because it hides the best while still providing a decent enough rum flavor. But still, every Mai Tai was perfectly drinkable.

Verdict 4/10

In conclusion, I basically don’t know of any scenario where I would recommend Bacardi Black to anyone. It’s worse in basically every drink than competing black rums, and if you really won’t drop $35 on a handle of Goslings or Appleton Estate Signature, and only have $25 and want to buy a handle for a party, then Bacardi Superior is still pretty much superior in every situation. Bacardi Black is just outclassed in every scenario by rums at the same price point, and it’s really only half-decent drowned in coke. There’s a certain flavor from heavily charred barrels that I learned to appreciate, such as in Pusser’s rum and The Real McCoy 5 Year, and I just didn’t get that flavor from Bacardi Black. It just tasted like they paid scientists a lot of money to recreate that flavor, and they did an okay job. I didn’t find it gross or want to spit it out, and in fact I thought the sourness, bitterness, and sweetness were decently balanced at least, if overwhelming. But it’s just not how black rum should taste. It’s just sub-par.