Kane’s Golden Rum. Every so often I’ll walk into one of the Supermarkets and find a new expression of rum. More often than not I am already familiar with the brand. Supermarkets in the UK have been greatly expanding their rum selections, over the past 3 to 4 years. On occasion though, I come across a bottling which I have never seen or heard of before.

I won’t pretend I stumbled across this in the Supermarket. I actually became aware of this rum via a post in the UK Rum Club, on Facebook. Kane’s Golden Rum is available in Tesco and a few people were curious as to what it might be like.

So I thought I would take the plunge. I paid £13 for this, though it is usually meant to retail at £16 per bottle. The bottle is a standard bar bottle complete with a bright blue metal screw cap. The presentation screams out “Tiki” and it certainly does stand out on the shelf. Currently, it seems you can only get this in Tesco supermarket. I did a bit of digging around the Internet, to find out some more information on this rum.

I was quite surprised to find that they had a website. Though it offers little further information on the rum. I was particularly interested to learn who Kane might be. It turns out that he is In Hawaiian mythology “considered the highest of the four major Hawaiian deities, along with Kanaloa, Kū, and Lono, though he is most closely associated with Kanaloa. He represented the god of procreation and was worshipped as ancestor of chiefs and commoners. Kāne is the creator and gives life associated with dawn, sun and sky. No human sacrifice or laborious ritual was needed in the worship of Kāne. Apparently.

Bearing in mind the presentation of this bottle that kind of makes sense. If anyone knows differently please let me know. What the website did let us know though, is who the charming lady on the front label is. She is “Betty” and she has four suggestions of how we should enjoy Kane’s Golden Rum – A Kane’s Classic (Cuba Libre/Rum and Cola), Kane’s & Ginger, Kane’s Mojito and finally a Kane’s & Orange. Hardly ground breaking cocktails but clearly Kane’s is marked as a mixing rum.

Which is no surprise bearing in mind the price point. So what are we actually getting in our glass? Do we have any real information about the rum? Well yes for once we do have some information beyond “age in oak barrels”. Fair play to the producers they have provided some very relevant information on the rear label.

“A blend of fine Caribbean Column & Pot Still Rums” underneath which you might not be able to quite work out reads

“3 year old rum from Barbados, 2 year old rum from the Dominican Republic and fresh rum from Trinidad”

For fresh read – unaged but hats off to them for giving us a bit of information about the rum components. On the downside this rum is bottled at the lowest possible ABV of 37.5% ABV. No doubt to make it as competitive price wise as possible and they have went for that age old tradition of random “stars” across the label, for no particular reason other than to make it appear highly rated?

Kane’s Golden Rum is part of the Whyte & Mackay portfolio, which goes some way to explaining why Kane’s is a mixing rum. Whyte & Mackay, whilst having some premium expressions such as the Dalmore and Jura single malts are well known for stocking supermarkets with their blended whisky, Vladivar vodka and Harvey’s Bristol Cream. It is also worth noting that in Scotland, rum particularly dark rum, is enjoyed largely as a mixer. The Scots are very keen on their dark Navy style rums such as OVD and Watson’s.

I guess this is Whyte & Mackay’s attempt to introduce something slightly different. So lets see how this rum compares to the other “gold” rums on our supermarket shelves.

In the glass you’ll never guess – its a golden brown colour. A medium golden brown to be exact. The nose is young with quite a lot of booze going on. Surprisingly there is quite a interesting weight of oakiness and a touch of spice.

With a little more time in the glass you begin to notice the sweeter notes of vanilla – which remind me very much of just about every Dominican Rum I have had to date. Slightly confected but at least there is something going on with this rum. It’s not the biggest nose in the world but it has a reasonable amount of impact. It’s not entirely bad.

Sipped it really shows just how young the blend is. It’s bitter and very short on flavour. It tastes a little like weak vodka. There isn’t a great deal of flavour beyond alcohol and bitter oak. Even as a “shot” this is pretty harsh going down.

For £16 I wasn’t expecting to do much with Kane’s Golden Rum beyond mixing it. So, let’s bring out the cola and see how things go.

It’s actually not at all bad to be honest. The Dominican sweet influence returns so you get a fair amount of vanilla. Despite the low ABV, a decent amount of oak and spice runs alongside the sweetness. The Trini rum in the blend is probably pretty neutral and is in the rum to bring the price down (apologies Angostura). The Bajan maybe brings a bit of balance but the Dominican element is certainly where the flavour in this rum is coming from. It’s not overly smooth, so it is still a little rough around the edges. I would take it over Barcelo Anejo anytime. It is more in keeping with their Gran Anejo.

In all honesty its pretty average fair, but it isn’t a terrible rum by any stretch. It’s certainly better than the dark supermarket own brand rums. Not quite as good as the likes of Appleton Signature and Chairman’s Reserve though. For the price you can’t grumble too much.