The Most Collected Rums From Last Week

Goslings flagship rum is a blend of pot still and continuous still rums imported into Bermuda and aged in single-use bourbon barrels. The result is a rich and complex dark rum. Its name comes from the black wax that was used to seal reclaimed champagne bottles.

Sir Henry Morgan (Captain Morgan, as he is known by the masses) was born in Wales in 1635. He was, at various times for the British government a privateer, a prisoner, an admiral, and a knight. He gained his notoriety by attacking the Spaniards who had set up shop in the Caribbean, most notably in Panama and Cuba, and doing what pirates do best--he plundered. He died at the ripe old age of 53 as Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. Captain Morgan the rum was introduced to the world in 1983 and since 2010 has been produced in the U.S. Virgin Islands after relocating its distillery there from Puerto Rico.

Named for a character in Charles Dickens’ “The Pickwick Papers,” the Pineapple Stiggins’ Fancy Rum began as a one-off collaboration between Alexandre Gabriel and cocktail historian David Wondrich. The demand was strong enough that Plantation made it a proper release. Pineapple rinds are infused with their Plantation 3 Stars Rum for one week, then pot distilled. The fruit is separately steeped in Plantation Original Dark Rum for three months. The two liquids are blended and the resulting Pineapple Rum is rested in casks for three months before bottling.

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.

Mount Gay Eclipse was named to honor the unique occurrence of both the passing of Halley's Comet and a solar eclipse occurring in the year of 1910. Eclipse is double-distilled from rich sugarcane molasses, fermented for 72 hours with proprietary house yeast, and is aged in ex-bourbon and used whiskey barrels for up to two years. Mount Gay Rum, produced in Barbados, is the oldest existing rum brand in the world dating back to 1703.

Appleton Estate is one of the oldest brands of rums on the market having been established in 1779. The estate where the sugarcane is harvested, processed, distilled, and aged encompasses over 11,000 acres in Nassau Valley, Jamaica. American ex-bourbon barrels are used for aging, which in this case, is for a minimum of 12 years. Note: This was formerly known as Appleton Estate Extra 12 Year. The name was changed in mid 2015.

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.

Bacardí Superior, "the original white rum," is made from a recipe based on the one created by Don Facundo Bacardí Massó at the original distillery in Santiago, Cuba in 1962. Rums are aged separately in ex-bourbon casks for one to two years. They are then blended and charcoal filtered for clarity.

Plantation Barbados 5 Year Rum is a blend of pot still and column still Bajan rums that are aged in bourbon casks for 3-4 years in the Caribbean. The blend is then finished in French oak casks at Maison Ferrand’s Château de Bonbonnet in the heart of the Grande Champagne district for 1-2 years more. Note: Formerly called Plantation Grande Reserve 5 Year.

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.