Kopparberg Cherry Flavoured Spiced Rum. Fair play to Kopparberg by labelling this rum as both Spiced and Flavoured along with hitting the minimal 37.5% ABV they are producing a Spiced/Flavoured rum in line with EU regulations. Rather than the numerous Rum based Spirit Drinks that have appeared on our shelves (alongside rum) in recent years.

Now, for those of us in the UK Kopparberg are most famous for their Pear and Mixed Fruits ciders. Which are probably only eclipsed in terms of sales by Strongbow and Strongbow Dark Fruits. Mainly because they are cheaper. Indeed, Kopparberg are the choice of your more sophisticated chav with a few more pennies to spend. You’ve got to look good drinking on those street corners. Nothing says class quite like a bottle of Kopparberg Mixed Fruits and a similarly flavoured vape in your cake hole. Alongside god know what else, as the night goes on…….

Kopparberg Cherry Flavoured Spiced Rum is a Dark Spiced Rum infused with Premium Fruit flavours. According to the label anyway. Aside from this and the ABV 37.5% there is no information about the actual rum in this bottle. It retails at around the £22 mark for a 70cl. Though you can find it cheaper at the moment £18, at the likes of ASDA and Amazon.

Presentation wise is in keeping with Kopparberg’s Cider range with a dark label with a gold Kopparberg logo. Surprisingly for a spiced rum you get a synthetic cork stopper which adds a touch of class. However, you may find your enthusiasm is tempered somwehat upon popping the cork……..

For a spiced rum Kopparberg Cherry Flavoured Spiced Rum is not to heavy on the additives. It bobs at 35% with the hydrometer, which indicates around 10 g/L of additives. Really quite low for a spiced rum and a flavoured spiced rum at that.

I’ve been unable to find out any information on whether Kopparberg produce the rum themselves or whether they buy spiced rum and add the Cherry flavouring. From tasting it, I favour the second option. With a complete absence of any further information I may as well get on with the tasting?

Kopparberg Cherry Flavoured Spiced Rum is a strange colour for a dark spiced rum which has been infused with premium fruit flavours. It’s bright red bordering on being almost as synthetic looking as the Captain Morgan Tiki abomination.

On the nose you get a weird mixture of vanilla and toffee spiced rum alongside some over the top Cherry notes which really do not smell “premium” at all! It smells a little like those really sickly ice cream and strawberry lollies you can get. Just not “real” at all.

The cherry notes are really sweet and remind me of Swizzels Double Dip sherbert. Which was/is ridiculously sweet and synthetic tasting. This was fine when I was 8 years old but as a 42 year old it’s not really what I’m looking for. Well not when I am meant to be drinking rum anyway!

Sipped (why do I do this to myself?) Kopparberg Cherry Flavoured Spiced Rum delivers everything the nose and ABV suggested. It tastes pretty much like those crappy £1/2 shots you buy off pretty girls in buy when you are young, daft and extremely drunk. To be honest I never did as I was too tight!

It’s thin and disappointing with no real body or any kind of oomph. It’s like an alco-pop in spirit form. The cherry isn’t quite as “sweet” and synthetic as on the nose but it’s just so meh that its just not worth bothering with. It tastes more like flavoured vodka with a jarring caramel/vanilla note that just completely knocks it all out of balance.

If this had just tasted like the sherbet out of a Double Dip it would have been bad but not quite as horrific as this. It’s almost as if they have poured a Cherry flavoured cider into a generic Spiced Rum and seen what would happen.

Well what has happened is a complete mess of a spiced/flavoured rum Kopparberg!.

I tried mixing this with cola but to be honest rather than taste like Cherry Cola, it just disappeared into a faint note of fake cherry with a real hit of alcohol. Not in terms of booziness but more in terms of drinking vodka neat. It just tasted of cheap young nasty booze.

It doesn’t really have an entry other than fake cherry and unpleasant spiced rum. The mid palate is short and the finish – well it just kind of fades out into a nasty taste of cheap young booze. It’s all over quite quickly – thankfully. There’s no mention of ageing with this rum and if it is aged in anyway they’ve managed to make even more of a mess of this rum than I thought!

I looked this up on Amazon expecting to see the usual five star reviews for crap like this. Even the clowns on there are mixed in their opinion of this. It’s currently scoring 2.6 – which is low for a Spiced Rum!

They have also released a Dark Fruits variant on this. I would imagine using the same base rum. Whatever that might be.

I doubt many of you reading this would have been expecting a glowing review of this but even I’m surprised how much of a mess they have made of it.

Absolute bollocks.