Atlantico Gran Reserva. Atlantico are a rum brand that hail from the Dominican Republic. In 2017 Atlantico had a complete re-brand of their rum range.

This particular bottling was the Private Cask – it is now renamed as the Gran Reserva. Other rums in the range are the White – Platino and the mid range rum the Reserva.

Presentation wise there isn’t much to quibble about. Nice sturdy card sleeve and a holder for the rum. A good medium sized rounded bottle with a very substantial natural cork enclosure. A bottle in the UK will set you back around £35-40 for a 70cl bottled at a conservative but unsurprising 40% ABV. To be fair Dominican Rum is often bottled below this at 38% ABV.

Searching the internet for information reveals that none other than Enrique Englesias was at one “partnered” with this rum. There is no mention of him on the new website. Nor can I find any reference to him on the bottle.

Atlantico Gran Reserva is a blend of rums made from both Sugar Cane Juice and Molasses. Whilst not entirely unique it is quite unusual to find this style of rum. Particularly in what is a very commercial product. The Master Blenders also use something they refer to as “Malta” which is a low ABV sugar cane rum base to give the final blend more depth of flavour and complexity. All the rums are column distilled.

The rum is then aged in a Solera System. It is noted that there are rums upto 25 years old included in this blend. The Sugar Cane and Molasses rums are initially aged separately before being married together for further maturation. All ageing occurs in ex-American Whiskey Barrels.

My botting is from Batch No B1_07601_BLAA. Which is about as useful as a chocolate fireguard as far as info goes.

The rear label of Atlantico Gran Reserva gives some more equally useful “information” as pictured. The rear of the bottle reveals “Mit Farstoff (Zuckercolor E150)” which is our old friend Caramel Colouring. Nothing I get to heated up about with regard more commercial releases. I am quite surprised that this rum also tested “clean” with the Hydrometer bobbing at 40% ABV.

Unsurprisingly then in the glass the rum reveals itself as a fairly standard “rum” colour. Dark brown with an orange/red tinge.

Originally when Atlantico Private Cask was released it received quite a lot of positive reviews. I’ve no doubt many of those reviews were provided in lieu of a sample or two. Whether Atlantico Private Cask was a great rum back then – I don’t know. It was a long time ago though – perhaps before the whole additives issue had really been explored (and proven).

With that in mind I’ll explain my first misgivings about this rum. The nose. If you gave me this blind I would say it was a Spiced Rum. An artificial vanilla doused Spiced Rum as well. By any standards the vanilla notes are excessive and to be honest too syrupy and synthetic. Do I think they are as a result of oak ageing?

Definitely not. Alongside the strong vanilla aroma are some notes of Caramel, Toffee and some sweet notes which remind me of Fruit Salad sweets.

There are some notes of oak and a hint of spice but they are fighting to get noticed above all the sweetness.

Sipped it’s light, easy to drink with an admittedly fairly decent amount oak and spice – especially on the finish which is the best part by far.

Up front though it’s just too sweet. To much vanilla and toffee sauce on this one. Far too sugary sweet – almost like an artificial sweetener such is the bitter saccharin notes in the mid palate.

It lacks complexity and it just tastes a bit to simple to really appeal to my taste buds. I can understand how people would enjoy this. It is approachable especially if you prefer sweeter (read sweetened) spirits.

The problem is these kind of rums lead people to believe that other rums without additives are “dry” or “inferior” because they don’t have all this sweetness.

What it’s disguising is a fairly unremarkable blend of non-descript column distilled product.

This is far from “great rum”. I’m sorry Atlantico but you can’t be my hero I’m afraid.

On that note I think we’ll bring this one to a close……..