Cloven Hoof Spiced Rum is made by Guilty Libations, here in the UK in Oxfordshire.  Anyone who has attended the various Rum Festivals that have sprung up all around the UK in the past year may be familiar with the brand.

It is hard to miss.  Big, bold and very brash!  Cloven Hoof Spiced rum is blend of Guyanese and Trini rums. Mixed with (and I quote) “a mysterious concoction of natural spices”.  The presentation is almost Heavy Metal. Their website has several “endorsements” from various bands I have never heard of.  Nor do I like the look of.

It is bottled at 37.5% ABV. So it rightly calls itself a spiced rum rather than a spirit drink with rum as the base.  A bottle in the UK should cost you around £25.  As you can see the presentation is pretty dark.  Conjuring up visions of hellfire and the devil.

All in all its a pretty curious proposition.  The name gives you a little clue. The rum does have cloves as part of the mix of natural spices.  The Demerara element from Guyana is a blend of pot and column. Which goes alongside the lighter Trini rum in the blend.

Spiced Rum is very popular here in the UK so its no surprise that I see many new spiced rum brands popping up.  Cloven Hoof has been going for just over a year and is already getting a bit of a cult (pun intended) following.  So lets see what the fuss is about.

In the glass Cloven Hoof Spiced Rum is a rich golden brown colour. Which immediately puts me in mind of caramel.  The nose is very, very sweet.  Huge wafts of cloves and brown sugar.  It smells like very sweet candy – the sort that makes your nose twitch a little it is so sweet.  No wonder it has been so popular at the various fests. The UK public love sweet(ened) rum.

Once your nose adjusts a little you do get a bit more than just sweetness.  There is a touch of burnt caramel which gives a touch of a bitter note, notes of cough mixture – Navy Tablet (old fashioned English sweets).  It reminds me quite a lot of a Demerara Rum liqueur I was gifted a while back or even Lord Nelson’s Rum Liqueur.  It’s really, really sweet.

I ran it through the Hydrometer and it couldn’t give a reading (which suggests upwards of 100g/L of added sugar/spices(?).  I have spoken with Paul Stanley and he has advised that the blend has 99g/\L of added sugar. Just below what the EU would regard as a liqueuer.  The Hydrometer reading must have also accounted for the added spices etc.

Sipped it is surprisingly less sweet.  It is almost bitter/sweet.  It is a bit like drinking cough medicine.  Tasting very much like Falernum – the clove note is so present throughout.  In fact I would go so far as to say this is more akin to a clove liqueur than what I would usually expect from a Spiced Rum.  I can pick out notes such as menthol, a touch of cinnamon, tiny hint of anise but they are hard to individually note such is the clove and sugar influence.

Mixed with diet cola it becomes even more medicinal – like cough sweets this time.  There is a sharp almost artificial sweetener note which makes it a little less enjoyable.  To be honest I didn’t mix it with anything beyond the diet cola.  It’s kind of like mixing Bailey’s.  It’s just fine on its own.

Cloven Hoof Spiced Rum is an interesting drink. I would say its best enjoyed on its own at the end of a meal.

I couldn’t drink much of this and I would have to be very much in the mood for something like this.  Having said that for £25 it is no better or worse than some of the ultra sugared premium crap which comes out of the Dominican Republic and Peru.

It is what it is.  To be honest if you are after something almost liqueuer like – very sweet and sticky then regardless of what score I give this rum you might give it a try.

As a Spiced Rum to mix with cola? It wasn’t for me.  On its own I could enjoy the odd glass.