Havana Club Anejo 3 Anos (Aged 3 years) is a white rum from the Cuban rum producers.  With news of a possible embargo on Cuban products in the US I felt it a good time to review this staple of the UK and Europe’s style bars.

Distributed in the UK by Pernod-Ricard, Havana Club’s main competition comes from the Puerto Rican powerhoubse Bacardi.  Which is distributed by Bacardi-Brown-Forman.  Oddly I cannot think of many White Rums which have any kind of meaningful presence in the UK other than Havana Club and Bacardi.  To be honest Bacardi has become such a byword for white rum that I doubt many people who drink Bacardi even realise it is rum!

I’m concerned my research has been unable to find a white rum marketed by Diageo (who own Captain Morgan amongst other rum brands) in the UK.  If I am missing something obvious please let me know in the comments below!

I would say Havana Club’s rums have established themselves fairly comfortably over here int the UK.  This aged (white rum has to be filtered to be white thus it cannot be aged for too long or you’d never get he colour out!) white is a step up from the Anejo Blanco.  Price wise in the UK the difference is only a couple of pounds.  Having said that the 3 Anos is much easier to get a hold of.  Sainsbury’s stock it which is where I purchased my bottle.  As can be seen from the rums I have so far reviewed I’m not huge on white rum.  This is mainly due to my preference for rum and cola or sipping rums.  I don’t do a lot of cocktails so have little use for white rums.  Still I picked this bottle up for £15 for the purpose of a review and to try to complete the Havana Club portfolio.

The rum comes in a standard bar style bottle.  The label quite suits the rum and I don’t mind the presentation.  It isn’t spectacular but its keeps in with the brands identity.

The first thing I note with this white rum is very slight yellow tinge to the rum.  When poured into the glass I also note it is slightly viscous.

The nose is very sweet.  It has that Havana Club nose which I have noted in my review of the 7 Year Old.  It is quite a strange almost tobacco like note.  I’m not a huge fan of this but the sweetness seems to be tempering it slightly making it more appealing.  It is not as prominent as in the Anejo Especial.

As a 3 year old rum this should be approaching sippable.  At the same time its a white and from what I gather it is aimed at luxury cocktails and its to be used in Mojitos and Daiquiris.  When sipped the rum is fairly smooth but it doesn’t have an abundance of flavour.  Its sweet but very short.  I’ve not met many people with an interest in White Rums as sippers (Mamajuana on Ministry of Rum has a strange interest in trying 100 White Rums).

When mixed with cola the rum reveals itself as very competent.  Similar to Bacardi Superior.  It’s not quite as sweet and does still have a hint of tobacco lurking in the mix.  At under £20 we are firmly in mixing territory here.  From trying all the Havana Club rums up to the Seleccion de Maestro its nice to see how the rums progress up the scale.  As a result I can’t really mark this rum too highly.  It does a decent job as a mixer.  It’s relatively inexpensive.  However I have had a couple of white rums which I would favour.  Plantation 3 Star and El Dorado 3 Year Old both have an edge over this (admittedly they are more expensive).  In the straight taste test I’ve performed with this Bacardi Superior and Lemon Hart White Rum I’m even finding the Lemon Hart to be slightly more interesting.  The little hint of Guyanese rum in the Lemon Hart I’m enjoying more than I recall.

Having said all that there really isn’t much to split the three white mixing rums.  I would imagine in cocktails you would struggle to pick one out over the others.

Maybe I need to start building a few cocktails and exploring white rum a little more.  However, for now my assessment is that this in the grand scheme of things is an unspectacular rum.  It’s average.  I’ll be cruel and say it……it’s white rum what do you expect?

My scoring reflects this……..

This rum is available from