Our Top Sweet Rum Picks

Atlantico Gran Reserva (formerly Private Cask) is the top marque from Atlantico, a brand which distills both molasses and cane juice rums. They're aged separately, then married together and re-aged, before entering the solera-aging system. For the Gran Reserva, that results with a final blend which includes rums up to 25 years in age. The Atlantico portfolio got an update to their packaging in 2017.

Zaya Gran Reserva was previously made in Guatemala but is now produced in Trinidad & Tobago. This product formerly had an age statement of 12 years, but now the bottle simply has the number "12" displayed on its bottles. That number is to indicate that Zaya Gran Reserva is made from a blend of 12 rums which aged in medium-charred used whiskey barrels.

The Ron Cartavio distillery was founded in 1929 and nationalized by the Peruvian government in 1968. The X0, distilled in a combination of copper pot and column stills, is a blend of rums with a weighted age of 18 years in Slovenian and other oak. It's a brilliant, rosy topaz in color with voluptuous legs.

This dark rum includes seven different rums aged up to 25 years and include rums that were column and some that were pot-distilled. This blend was aged in bourbon and port casks before briefly (up to 30 days) finishing its maturation in former oloroso sherry casks made from French Limousin oak. Bottled at 43% ABV.

Ron Zacapa 23 Sistema Solera Rum was first produced in 1976 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Guatemalan town of Zacapa. It's a rum made from raw sugarcane honey grown on the Zacapa estate high in the hills of Guatemala, extracted from the first pressing of sugarcane juice. It is then fermented using a proprietary strain of pineapple yeast and distilled in a copper-lined column still. After distillation, the rum is aged in a Solera process from a series of casks which once held bourbon, oloroso sherry and Pedro Ximenez sherry. The rums in the blend vary between 6 and 23 years of age.

The Extra Old was released to mark Alexandre Gabriel’s 20th anniversary at the helm of Cognac Ferrand. The Extra Old showcases Plantation’s oldest Bajan rum reserves, aged for 12-20 years in bourbon casks. The selected rums are blended at Château de Bonbonnet in France and finished in small French oak casks for 12-18 months.

El Dorado has been produced at Demerara Distillers Limited since 1992 on Guyana. The 15 Year is a blend of aged demerara rums, some as old as 25 years, made in different styles of stills - Enmore and Diamond Coffey stills, Port Mourant double-wooden-pot-still and Versailles single-wooden-pot-still. The rums are blended and aged in ex-bourbon casks.

The Centuria is a solera-type blend of rums from the "Reserva de la Familia" aged up to 30 years in American whiskey barrels. Varela Hermanos, the distillery in Panama that produces this and other rum products, grows its own cane and controls the entire subsequent process from fermentation and distillation to ageing and assembly.

A blend of rums aged between 7 and 23 years, Facundo Exquisito is then finished for a month in sherry casks. This super-premium offering from Bacardi is one of four rums in the Facundo line, which are named after Bacardi Chairman Facundo L. Bacardi, the great-grandson of Bacardi founder Don Facundo Bacardi Masso.

This is the Venezuelan distillery’s flagship rum, called “exclusiva” as a tribute to their 18th century founder Don Juancho Nieto Meléndez, who was always in search of exclusive flavors for his rums. It’s a blend of 12 year old copper pot-still rums made from both molasses and sugarcane honey, aged in ex-bourbon barrels.