The Best Silver Rums for Sipping

Ten To One Caribbean White Rum is a blended rum made from Dominican column still rum and Jamaican pot still rum. After blending the rums are finished in American oak ex-bourbon barrels. No added sugar, colors, or flavorings added. Bottled at 90 proof, this launched in summer 2019 in the New York market.

Casa Magdalena Ron Blanco is a collaboration between Portland, Oregon's House Spirits and Ingenio Magdalena, S.A., the largest producer of sugar in Central America. Molasses is column-distilled in Guatemala at the Magdalena Distillery to produce the rum according to specifications between the two entities. It is then shipped to the US in tankers and is matured in American whiskey barrels at House Spirits warehouse for about six months. Bottled at 41.5% ABV after being lightly filtered.

Copalli Rum was launched in 2019 by marine conservationist Todd Robinson and Anya Fernald, CEO of restaurant and butcher shop chain Belcampo. An organic rum, it’s made on the grounds of the duo’s Copal Tree Lodge in Belize. The sugarcane used to make the rum is sourced from the surrounding rainforest. Copalli White Rum is a blend of pot and column distilled sugarcane juice. After distillation, it’s rested on stainless steel for a period of time before being bottled at 42% ABV.

Bayou Rum is the brainchild of Louisiana Spirits founders Tim and Trey Litel and Skip Cortese, who sought to bring back the lost art of local rum production. To make Bayou, they use a mixture of Louisiana sugarcane molasses and raw sugar from M.A. Patout and Son, Ltd. The white is a pot-still rum with triple-filtered spring water, bottled unaged.

New Orleans rum producer Roulaison Distilling launched at the end of 2016—Roulaison is the French-Creole term used for the sugarcane harvest. The distillery focuses on a pre-industrial style of rum, with small batch alembic pot still distillation. They also use 100% Louisiana molasses. The flagship white rum is bottled at 44% ABV.

From Foursquare Distillery in Barbados comes this aged and filtered white rum bottled for the Real McCoy--a company founded by a documentary filmmaker whose research into the famed rum runner led him to found his own rum brand.

The first-ever white rum from Plantation is named for three rum-producing “stars” of the Caribbean: Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad. The blend features unaged rums from Barbados and Jamaica, a 3-year-old rum from Trinidad and a 12-year Jamaican rum. Each rum brings their respective island’s distinctive flavors and characteristics to the blend, from the lighter, refined Trinidadian rum to the funkier, full-bodied Jamaican rums. Any color from the aging process has been removed via carbon filtration before bottling.

Banks Rum is named for the botanist Sir Joseph Banks, an adventurer who sailed with Captain Cook in the mid 18th century. The 5 Island blend is composed of 21 rums from 5 different islands - Trinidad, Jamaica, Guyana, Barbados, and Java, each lending their own unique style, flavors and character. The final formula was created by Master Blender Arnaud de Trabuc, who uses a combination of pot-stilled and column-stilled rums, charcoal filtered for clarity.

Paranubes Rum is made from fresh-pressed sugarcane juice from sugarcane grown near the Sierra Mazateca Mountains in northern Oaxaca. Master distiller, Jose Luis Carrera uses four different types of sugarcane, with Caña Criolla being the featured cane. Unusually, Paranubes is made with a rolling wild fermentation which is only completely drained every four months. Otherwise, the fermentation goes for 24-48 hours with only half removed each day for distillation (a wood-fire copper column still). Bottled at 54% ABV, no water is used to bring the rum to proof. Only lower and higher proof rum is added.

Engineered with cocktails in mind, Chairman’s Reserve White Rum (formerly Silver) rum is a molasses-based rum. Made at St Lucia Distillers, it is distilled in a combination of copper pot and Coffey column-stills. The rums are aged separately in ex-bourbon barrels for 3-4 years. Then the rums are blended and allowed to mingle for another 6 months in oak vats.