Botran are a rum brand from Guatemala. The rums are distilled at the same distilleries as Ron Zacapa – Industrias Licoreras de Guatemala.
Botran have had a few makeovers/changes in their line up over the past few years. Which has made researching this rum quite confusing to be honest!
As common with many Central American rums Botran adopt a Solera system. So whilst this rum is noted as Ron Anejo 12 in big letters on the bottle – the small print reveals Sistema Solera.
Kill Devil is an old fashioned term for rum but this is a very new rum brand. Coming from independent whisky bottler Hunter-Laing. I came across these distinctive bottlings for the first time on a German website 4finespirits. I was interested in trying them but importing spirits into the UK can be a bit of minefield (the German’s also have a different rate of VAT which further complicates things) so I passed over buying them straight away.
Ron Zacapa XO is the “super premium” addition to the regular Ron Zacapa range. There are many others yearly variations on the rum but this one along with the Sistema Solera 23 has been available for a number of years now.
I’m sure we are all aware of the marketing and the awards Ron Zacapa have won over the years. Not to mention the criticism the brand has come in for due to the sugar additions to their rums. Zacapa holds the accolade of being widely recognised as “one of the best rums in the world” on one hand whilst seen as the devil itself by many within the rum community.
Plantation Rum, as well as offering their more usual fair have now introduced a Single Cask Collection. I was quite surprised to see a Guatemala XO as part of this collection. This is because recently Plantation stopped producing a sole Guatemalan Anejo and had begun producing a mixed Guatemala/Belize blend.
I bought this rum out of curiosity. On this site I have reviewed another Guatemalan rum which is produced for UK food retailer Marks and Spencer. The notes on the Marks and Spencer led me to believe that the rum was possibly supplied by Cognac Ferrand who own the Plantation brand of rums.
For those unfamiliar with the Plantation brand the basics are as follows. Cognac Ferrand procure (possibly in exchange for the wine and sherry casks used in the ageing of spirits) aged rum from a variety of distillers around the world. They do not publicise who the distillers are (a little research can often narrow the possibilities down). The rum is then usually “double aged” or finished in other casks to give the rum a distinctive profile. So basically they get good rum and give it a bit of a twist. That’s the theory anyway.
Ron Zacapa Centenario is a premium rum produced in Guatemala by Rum Creation and Products, a subsidiary of Industrias Licoreras de Guatemala and distributed and marketed by Diageo. Zacapa was created in 1976 to celebrate the centenary of the foundation of Zacapa, a town in eastern Guatemala.
The rum is produced using Virgin Sugar cane honey rather than molasses. One of the confusing aspects surrounding the various Ron Zacapa rums which have been available has been the ageing statements. This has also been further confused by different territories enjoying different expression of their rums. I have used the full naming convention on the bottle for the purpose of this review to avoid any confusion. This is something I usually do with my reviews but I took extra care with this particular one.
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