Rum 101: what is spiced rum?

July 13, 7:06 PMRum ExaminerRobert A. & Robert V. Burr

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Spiced rums contain flavors from spices and other exotic elements that give the rum a unique and interesting character, adding special qualities to mixed drinks and rum cocktails. As a category of rum, flavored and spiced rums are gaining in popularity and are widely available in liquor stores in the United States.

Foursquare Spiced Rum
is produced in Barbados.
Photo by Robert Burr.

The myriad types of flavors and spices infused into rums offer a wide range of interesting and multifarious variations of spirits, both full proof and limited potency liqueurs and creams. Spiced rums offer unique flavors to cocktails, rum cakes, holiday libations and many other uses, bringing decidedly tropical flavors to the palate.

Spices are generally derived from the seeds, dried fruit, root, leaf or bark of edible flora. These aromatic and pungent vegetal substances often provide excitement and zest to sweeter liquids. Many popular spiced concoctions were originally devised and distilled as medicinal cures and treatments for a laundry list of ailments known to plague modern society in the post-industrial generations. Many popular drink ingredients in the category of bitters evolved from such intendedly curative mixtures.

Roots of ginger, seeds of vanilla and allspice, bark of cinnamon or cassia and buds of clove are commonly used as flavoring agents for spiced rums. Fruit extracts of citrus, coffee, cherry, mint, black currant, coconut, mango, pineapple, banana and other tropical plants and trees bring luscious tones to flavored rum varieties.

Rum creams combine rum flavor with rich and decadent dairy textures to create dessert-like mixtures suitable for after-dinner libations or as a creamy base to other spirited drinks.

U.S. laws require products labeled as rum to contain at least 40% alcohol by volume. Some distilled spirits that do not meet this requirement are labeled as flavored rum, whether or not they contain discernible or dominant flavor agents.

Some popular brands of spiced and flavored rums include Captain Morgan, Sailor Jerry, Pango, Montecristo, Foursquare, Malibu Coconut Rum, Castries Peanut Rum Cream, Bacardi Limon and Dragonberry, Cruzan Mango and Coconut, Don Q Passion, Parrot Bay Coconut Rum, Crisma Rum Cream, Taylor's Velvet Falernum and Brinley's Gold Coffee, Key Lime, Vanilla, Mango and Coconut rums.

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Robert Burr
National Rum Examiner
Gifted Rums Guide
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