Glen Catrine Distillers are probably not very well known outside of the UK.  The distillery is based in Catrine, Ayrshire, Scotland.  Glen’s are best known for there entry level vodka which competes somewhere in the void between supermarket vodka and Smirnoff, Russian Standard, Absolut etc.  The vodka is quite often bootlegged and a number of television programmes have warned consumers to be on the lookout for counterfeit Glen’s.  I have to say I hope the same problem hasn’t afflicted their Dark Rum as I bought this in a back street supermarket in Cyprus!

The UK has a number of entry level price “Dark Rums” such as Skipper, OVD and numerous supermarket offerings.  As this rums retails at around £13 per 70cl bottle, I think I know what to expect from this rum.  Glen’s Dark Rum is 37.5% ABV.

The rum comes in a standard 70cl bar bottle their are a few “pretend” medals on the front (they aren’t awards just pictures) and the label states “produce of the West Indies”.  The rear of the bottle reveals little more than the name of the rum again,the volume, bottle size and a bar code.

In the bottle Glen’s is a dark reddish brown.  When poured the rum looks much the same as in the bottle maybe slightly darker, less red.  On   the nose the rum is very rough.  It smells more of alcohol than anything else.  It’s a little like a cheap vodka.  There is a trace of sweet molasses, treacle and coffee but not much its very boozy.  There is no oakiness or anything which would suggest a great deal of ageing (no surprise).

Glen’s is not a sipper.  When sipped you can taste little of the rum as the senses are overpowered with strong alcohol and a pretty unpleasant but luckily short burn.  The tongue is left tingling/pulsating but other than a bitter astringency you are not left with anything which suggests the sip is worth repeating.  An ice cube cannot really rescue this rum as a sipper.  It just spreads the astringency and alcohol around in your mouth all the more.  It’s not pleasant, the burn is reduced a little but it just leaves you with a bitter after taste which you really want to get rid of.

When I picked up this bottle it was solely with the intention of mixing the rum.  Hopefully, it will be a rum which goes ok with cola or ginger beer.  When mixed with cola I get a drink which is much more recognisable.  A sweet, very rich, very “English” style of cheap rum.  It has a slight bitter astringency to the aftertaste but overall it really isn’t bad.  It’s not quite a sweet as Skipper (a Demerara) or as bitter and coffee-esque as OVD (another Demerara).  As far as Navy rum’s are concerned it is sweeter (and less potent) than Woods but not as sweet as Lambs.  I won’t even kid you with comparisons to Pussers.  I personally quite like its overall profile it reminds me of Old Hopkirk which is a rum Aldi stock (£9.79 per 70cl).  It’s a molasses, treacle heavy rum.  You wouldn’t confuse this for anything other than rum.

I’ve mentioned in other reviews that these kind of rum’s are popular in the UK and probably suit the climate.  They are rich and warming.  This is a rum which is for getting drunk with.  It’s not for sipping or serving to guests to impress as a good rum.  This is the rum you drink to quickly at the end of a working week, when all you want to do it is go to some other place and put some music on REALLY LOUD!  You’ll wake up in the morning with a bit of a thick head and find most of the bottle is gone but you really won’t care.  It only cost you a fifth of the price of a bottle of Zacapa.

I have a lot of good rum in my rum cabinet.  However, I make a rule of never having more than 3 or 4 drinks with the good stuff after that point I often turn to a bottle of supermarket rum.  Whilst I would never perform a review intoxicated I do get VERY drunk at least once a week.  I simply couldn’t afford to get drunk on premium sippers!

The rum falls roughly into the same market as Glen’s Vodka a kind of halfway house between supermarket own brand rum’s and the Lambs, Captain Morgan (yuck) etc.

This isn’t the greatest rum in the world by any stretch of the imagination but as a sweet, rich and warming rum which you can mix liberally with cola and just forget your shitty 9 to 5 job – it does the job!