New year, new sugar list additions. Let’s start with some of the good ones. Mount Gay Eclipse Navy Strength, Doorly’s 14, Equiano Original & Light, Brugal Colección Visionaria Edición 02, Rhum J.M. Terroir Volcanique are all without added sugar.
Out of the ones who need to go see the principal, Plantation/Planteray comes up several times. No surprise anymore. By now, most people know this company doesn't care about rum or the consumer. The top one being their coconut rum that was only for the Barbados market at first, because they didn’t have enough local coconuts to use. Now available all over the world. They must have found some more coconuts somewhere. Planteray Cut & Dry Coconut comes in at a whopping 38g/L of added sugar. I see a lot of people claiming their single casks aren’t messed with (this is a wrong statement by the way, even if no sugar has been added. They are always messed with in France). Planteray Single Cask Paraguay 2019 Kyrö Rye Whisky Cask Finish has a solid 15g/L of added sugar. I guess that distillate from Paraguay wasn’t “round” enough. Their new Planteray Barbados 20th Anniversary XO Pedro Ximenez Cask Finish needs some added sweetness of course. The PX casks weren't sweet enough. They figured 14g/L was the magic number to make that expression sell better.
Then we have Malecon. They’ve released a Rare Proof Añejo 13 Años. The rare proof in this case is 50.5%. Rare indeed for this bottler, who tends to sell sugared Panama rum with wild age statements and abvs in the low 40s. On their website they state they’ve done this so you can taste their rum as if you are drinking it straight from the cask. Almost. They did add 15g/L of sugar to mute the flavours of that barrel and likely to make sure the people who aren’t used to drinking 50% rums don’t feel the burn. So it’s not like drinking it straight from the cask at all. You have to wonder why they release such a thing, beyond being a plain marketing exercise.
The above is all quite disappointing. But I’m personally most disappointed in Compagnie Des Indes. A bottler I always believed didn’t do this kind of thing. I clearly should pay more attention. Unfortunately their 5 year, 43% Jamaica rum has 9g/L of added sugar. Checking their website, this rum got a bronze medal in Madrid in 2017. Not surprising, they like sweetened rums there, certainly in 2017. Bronze is not a win though, as gold medals are typically given out like candy in these types of competitions. Oprah Winfrey:”You get a gold medal, you get a gold medal, EVERYONE gets a gold medal!!”. What it also states is that they add 10g/L of organic cane syrup to the rum. I guess they’ve fallen for the sugar sells mantra. Booo. I'm going to have to change my approach to them. Luckily the 5 year Jamaica Navy Strength has no additives.
I realize the sugar list has become a little whacky. The sorting doesn’t work well. I’m going to change it to a whole new format. This will take some effort and time however. Please bear with me.
As always, Click here for the list, or use the "sugar list" link at the top of the page.
Updates that happened after March 2021 are at the bottom of the list. However, you used to be able to sort it by name, ABV, sugar and date.
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