Ron de Jeremy Reserva is the flagship rum of One Eyed Spirit’s Ron de Jeremy portfolio.  It has been widely available for a number of years. It’s success is down to a mixture of clever (if slightly smutty) marketing and a respectable product.

For those who don’t know, Ron Jeremy is an adult film star – the hardest working man on the planet. As a result the marketing of this rum is full of puns and double entendres.  The name of the rum is a play on the Spanish word for rum – “ron”. No matter what you might think about marketing a rum with a short, fat ugly pornstar as its figurehead. It certainly seems to be working!

Originally (if online research is to be believed) Ron de Jeremy Reserva was a 7 year old Panamanian rum blended by master blender “Don Pancho” Fernandez.  Such a busy man!  From the information contained on my bottle, that is no longer the case. The rum is a completely different beast nowadays.

Ron de Jeremy comes in a very good quality stubby bottle.  Presentation wise it is slightly muted and not to OTT.  If you didn’t know who Ron Jeremy was you might not realise the joke.  Reading the notes on the bottle though, will reveal to all but the most naïve people.

The rum ticks a lot of boxes in the “Premium Rum” category – nice synthetic cork enclosure and some very nice solid branding throughout.  Ron de Jeremy Reserva is bottled at 40% ABV and is firmly placed in the “premium” market.  Novelty value alone ensures this rum will sell.  The price point of £30-35 means it is keenly priced.  I would imagine a lot of rum lovers get this as a Christmas gift.

Reading between the lines Ron de Jeremy Reserva is a custom blend of rums from the Dutch Rum brokers E.A Scheer.  The bottle denotes that rums from Barbados, Trinidad, Jamaica and Guyana are blended, to produce this no age statement Reserva rum.

Unlike the revolting XO this rum actually passes the Hydrometer Test.  Though I do detect a hint of some kind of artificial sweetener.  Nothing overpowering though.  Helpfully the rum has a warning that it includes caramel colouring.

In the glass Ron de Jeremy is a very vivid light to golden brown with little flashes of red.  The nose is pretty sweet.  Big hits of brown sugar, butterscotch some cashew nuts. Younger notes of sweet alcohol, carried along with a little honey.  The nose is a little too sickly sweet for me.

Sipping this rum, its difficult to really pin point quite how the different rums are complementing one another.  A lot of the the flavour seems to come from the Trinidad rum which seems to be quite sweet and have an almost “supermarket” rum feel to it.  I’m getting none of the Jamaican element to this blend.  It must be a very inoffensive Jamaican.  I get some light Bajan notes such as vanilla and light oak.  Unfortunately, it all comes over as a just a touch too sweet.  Maybe the Demerara which I felt was fairly present on the nose, is coming into to play and supplying these sweet flavours.  Though I suspect it may be something else sadly.

All in all its not really a great sipper.  It’s certainly not a particularly complex one.  It does display some aged notes and genuine rum spirit but it has a honey-ed like flavour. It leaves the drink a little one dimensional.  It is also a very short drink with little taste after the initial burst of sweetness.  It very quickly moves into a spicy heat which quickly fades leaving little behind at all.  The aftertaste is strangely bitter and slightly astringent.

Mixing the Reserva seems to suit it better. It goes okay with cola giving a sweet mixed drink.  Sadly it doesn’t really offer any oak or “rummy” bite.  The honeyed notes are back again becoming almost cloying.  The drink is too smooth and it lacks any real character.

It probably isn’t worth the £30-35 – the novelty aspect is adding around £15 onto the price of this rum.  I don’t think it is a particularly long aged blend of rums.  If it is then they aren’t the best rums in the world!

Not the worst rum in the world and much better than the horrendous XO.  Even saying that without the novelty value I doubt this alone would sell very well – not at this price.