@worldwhiskies95 - good to know! Intestingly, the on Appleton that I've tried is the 12, and I found it to be more woody than a lot of other aged rums. But that's not surprising, given that it's a full 12 years. @PBMichiganWolverine - don't disagree. The Whiskey Exchange has this note regarding Ron Zacapa Centario Sistema Solera 23 "Interestingly, now that industry giants Diageo are distributing Zacapa, the '23 years old' age statement has suddenly been dropped and replaced with a somewhat more plausible claim – the rums used are aged between 6 and 23 years old and are blended together in a solera.". Apparently Diageo agrees that it's deceptive marketing.

@jonwilkinson7309 Jamaica requires the minimum age. It’s mostly the Spanish Caribbean countries that use the solera average age statement.

@jonwilkinson7309 seriously? That’s sounds like a shady practice

@jonwilkinson7309

I only learned recently that the age statements on rum are vastly different than whiskey age statements. Part of the reason is that unlike Scotland or the US, most rum producing countries don't have standards. Most rum is aged using the solera process and the age statement on the label represents the very oldest rum in the cask, even though that's only a small percentage of what remains after 23 or 30 years.

@PBMichiganWolverine They use a technique of re-barriquing, in which casks of the same age are regularly combined. This gradually reduces the stock of casks, but keeps the surviving casks as full as possible to reduce oxidation and evaporation. Also, as it's a hot climate maturation it's the water that evaporates first, meaning proof gradually increases. The final casks were probably well over 80% abv.

How does rum survive for 30 yrs in the Caribbean ? Was it distilled there and aged elsewhere ?