After noticing the “Ron De Jeremy” Panamanian rum whilst browsing on Amazon, I felt the need to try a Panamanian rum.  There are only so many Bajan, Jamaican or Demerara rums you can try before you think they all taste fairly similar and you aren’t really getting anything different for your money.

I’m someone who frequently changes drinks and I’m always looking to try something new.

With that in mind I decided to change my usual thought processes when ordering rum online and broke just about all of my rules with my most recent consignment.  The Ron Abuelo is a rum I would never normally buy.  It comes in an unsexy bottle, it has “ron” in its actual name and whilst it   got some decent reviews from a couple of rum reviewers the man on the street seemed to be totally ignoring it.

As mentioned already the rum is from Panama and the company has been going since 1908 and produce a wide variety of spirits not just rum.  I won’t bore you with too much information as the company website is here if you wish to investigate.

The packaging of the bottle is similar to a red wine but the best comparison to be made is to that of a port.  The rum is around £25 and for that price you get a decorative cardboard sleeve and the satisfaction of a very decent corked closure.  I don’t like the fact that the bottle looks like a cheap bottle of Spanish plonk but the sleeve and cork almost make up for that.

On pouring the rum is much lighter than I was expecting.  This is probably because I was expecting a thick viscous port to come out of the bottle.  The bottle is dark so you really have no way of knowing until you pour.  The rum itself is similar to a Venezuelan rum its not quite as smooth as the Diplomatico Reserva Exclusiva but its a little smoother than that companies Anejo (which is similarly priced), to be fair it should be smoother as it is a few years older.  The rum is bottled at 40% abv.

The rum is very fairly priced and very pleasant.  Despite being only a 7 year old I think its more suited to someone who sips rum.  The cola seemed to take away some of the flavour of this rum.  Personally with this in mind I think its too good to mix in cocktails.  If you like your spirits neat or with a little ice this bottle may well be a very good introduction to the world of sipping rum.