A Spiced Rum from the Foursquare distillery in Barbados.  This isn’t a rum that was introduced by the distillery to compete with Sailor Jerry or Kraken, its been around a while.

Highly regarded as a spiced rum, the rum comes in a slightly unusual tall bottle with a dripped wax sealing which covers a metallic screw top.  The label is simple and understated.  Unusual packaging is quite the distillery’s trademark (you would struggle to tell at a glance that any bottle is from the distillery, they do not have a formulaic appearance like Appleton for example).

When I first tried this rum I was shocked that it was spiced rum.  Where was the vanilla?  I guess this was down to naivety about what a decent spiced rum should taste like.  This is a million miles away from Morgan’s Spiced or Sailor Jerry.  The spices in the rum are quite subtle, clearly the idea was to enhance rather than overpower the rum contained in the mix.

Speaking of the rum I assume from the price point £20 that this rum is fairly young (I’d guess 3 years) so the spiced flavours are possibly there to smooth out the roughness of the rum rather than give it a nasty cloying synthetic taste.  In that respect it certainly works.  At 37.5% the rum takes a hit in potency for the spicing, however its probably worth it.

This bizarrely makes for quite a nice rum, though not really a spiced rum.  It does have a different kind of flavour but if this wasn’t billed as a spiced rum I’m not hugely convinced many would pick up on it.

Having said that this is a enjoyable rum on its own merits, I just found it surprisingly subtle.  Have Foursquare made a mixing rum?  Maybe Spiced Rum can be half decent after all?