House of Rum Panama 2004. Today we are returning to Central America courtesy of House of Rum with a bottling sourced from Varela Hermanos Distillery. Rather than the mythical Las Cabras Distillery of Don Pancho fame.

Varela Hermanos is known as much for exporting bulk rum to the main Rum brokers around the world, as it is for its flagship brand Ron Abuelo. In all fairness the “Spanish” style of rum is not something that I enthuse about much on the blog. This is as much in part due to the “fairy tales” and denial of additives, as it is the quality of the actual rum.

The deception of the producers does them no favours in my eyes.

House of Rum Panama 2004 is we are told free from additives. I have known producers be “burnt” before by rum from Panama. Being told no additives only to discover that mot to the case via laboratory testing. Sadly I have no laboratory to test the rum, so I will have to take the ABV noted on the bottle at face value when conducting any Hydrometer Test. If you have no idea at this stage what I am talking about please read the page on Hydrometer Tests.

Credit where credit is due this rum shows no signs of additives as per the Hydrometer.

House of Rum Panama 2004 is bottled at Cask Strength of 57.5% ABV. It has been produced on a multi column still. The rum is distilled from molasses. It has been aged for 12 years in Panama, in an ex-bourbon cask. Followed by  just under 7 years continental ageing in the UK in an ex-rum cask (which in turn I presume are also ex-bourbon). It was bottled in late 2003 and the cask yielded 255 bottles. Cask information is 217/399 /Cask #9. Currently the best place to pick up a 70cl bottle is Amazon where it retails at £199.

In terms of pricing it is certainly at pretty much my own personal limit. Again from a completely personal view, this wouldn’t be something I would even be considering buying.

I don’t have any more information on the rum. Overall my experience with Independently bottled Panama rum has been fairly positive. I can’t recall any blowing me away but I can’t recall too many stinkers either.

Lets go then……

In the glass we get a classic golden brown rum with slighly yellow shimmer to it. On the nose it is quite sweet and floral to begin with. Roses and Elderflower are quite prominent

Further nosing reveals the oak spices and the light vanilla from the ex-bourbon casks. Despite the rums age the nose is pretty vibrant. There is nothing stale or old about this rum. Nothing musty.

There is a touch of fresh leather and some sandalwood. There is also something a bit more herbal – something almost menthol like.

Its light and quite inviting. Easy going and sweet but not in a bad way. It’s very much in its style. I’ve always found Panama rum to be very approachable and this is no exception.

On the sip it is initially quite spicy with a fair bit of oak spices and ginger. There is a woodiness there but its not heavy – nice and light. Sweet notes of tangerine and peach come through as well as a bit of Rosewater.

Further sips reveal more of the vanilla and the ex-bourbon notes. I honestly couldn’t hazard a guess at what kind of “ex-rum cask” it enjoyed its secondary maturation in. Well thats not true I suppose, if I had to guess I would say……..Panamanian. I’m not noticing anything which would suggest for example Jamaica or Caroni of anything too exotic.

The mid palate gives a nice balance of sweetness and oak aromas. Vaniila and milk chocolate a touch of ginger. Maybe a little Cinnamon.

Finish wise this has a decent length which continues the flavours from the mid palate with an added hit of oak spice and vanilla.

For its style it is more than decent and I am enjoying it as a sipper. Its not a glass of rum that I would turn down. Its much better than a lot of rum in this style.

In this day and age it won’t pull up any trees and its a very good rum but I think the price is going to be its biggest issue. Fancy bottles and big age statements are not as persuasive in 2025 as they were in in 2005 or even 2015.