Up for review is another rum from the Flor de Cana range from Nicaragua.  It has taken a while for me to review many of the Flor de Cana rums, as I was disappointed with my experience when I bought the Centenario 12. This is the Flor de Cana 5 – Anejo Clasico.

The increase in decent rum on our supermarket shelves gave me an easy opportunity to pick up this gold rum from their line up.

Ordering online isn’t particularly difficult but being able to go into a physical shop and buy a reasonably interesting rum, is an experience which is fairly rare up here in North East of England.  There are very few independent stockists of rum.

So I was pleased to see Sainsbury’s stocking more rum.  All the Flor de Cana rums have been re-branded recently and the “age statements” on the bottle are no longer age statements……..just meaningless numbers.  They do not make any claims that this rum is 5 years old.  It is just called the 5.

Whether this is just to enable them to blend younger rums from time to time without changing the overall taste, I don’t know.  It may be so they can keep the illusions that this is a 5 year old rum but not use 5 year old rum.  Who knows? age statements are a bit of a mystery anyway as they aren’t really checked.

Sainsbury’s are stocking this rum at £22.50 for a 70cl bottle the ABV is 40%.  It’s slightly more expensive than two of my favourites on Sainsbury’s shelves Chairman’s Reserve and Appleton V/X.

I had a good experience with the Flor de Cana 7 recently so I thought I would give this one a go as well.

Flor de Cana seem to put their mixing rums in tall square bottle and their more aged rums in short squat bottles.  Presentation wise, apart from the colour scheme this is identical to the 7.  It’s solid and an improvement on the older dated bottlings but its not really very stand out.  The square bottle is distinctive but it still doesn’t jump out at you.

In the glass the rum is slightly lighter than the 7 but is still a nice golden brown colour.  As like most Latin American rums it is a column distilled rums which is then “slow aged” (their term) in small American Oak Barrels (Bourbon barrels).

The Anejo Clasico is primarily viewed as a mixing rum by the producers.  The nose is classic Flor de Cana – all three rums I have tried have had the same nutty like nose with light cocoa/chocolate notes and a little creamy toffee.  It’s very distinctive and easily recognisable.   The nose is not dis-similar at all to that of the 7.  Unlike the 7 the nose on this really does have a strong burst of alcohol though.  It’s smells much less refined.

As a sipper the Anejo Clasico is not the best.  Strong heavy alcohol notes are very much present.   It’s also pretty rough going down and very very spicy on the finish.  I’m surprised how much of a difference there is between the 5 and the 7.

I was fortunate enough to pick up the 7 for just £17.99 when it is usually at least £25 upto £30.  Sipping the Anejo Clasico really doesn’t work for me I find it too young and rough to reasonably enjoy.

In mixed drinks – as the producer intends it be used I find it makes a decent rum and cola.  It isn’t as smooth or as flavourful as the 7.  In many ways the strong young alcohol notes still interfere with the taste.  Once you get past that though there is a lot of flavour to enjoy.  Despite the youthfulness of the blend you did get some nice notes of oak and spicy notes, a little heat.  You still get some nice nutty sweet creamy notes some cocoa, a little tobacco.

It doesn’t make a bad rum and cola.  It has hints of vanilla and a little nutmeg which lifts the drink.  It has balance once you get past the strong alcohol notes.  As crass it may sounds it makes a pretty good rum for getting drunk with as it gets better with each glass.  When you’re noticing the alcohol notes less and less.

It’s probably more useful to bar tenders than people drinking it at home.  Unless of course you craft a lot of cocktails.  It will add a quite nice hit to drinks despite not being that high in ABV.

In many ways it was perhaps foolish to expect this to be too similar to the 7.  The overall notes are roughly the same but the 7 feels so much smoother and more refined.  The flavours in the profile shine more where with this one they are slightly masked by the “boozy” notes.

For me it falls into the slightly above average but I probably won’t buy it again group.  So the scoring will reflect just that.  It does what it’s there for competently but I feel £22.50 could be spent a lot better in future.