bigwhitemike
The Real McCoy 3 Year Rum
Silver Rum — Barbados
Reviewed
March 18, 2020 (edited June 4, 2022)
Side-by-side tasting with Plantation 3-Star. Neat in a Glencairn.
Simple bottle but an attractive and tasteful label. Synthetic cork. A very, very pale straw in the glass. Minimal viscosity. Thin legs, but they linger a bit.
Cream with a splash of melon on the nose - somewhere between cantaloupe and honeydew. Tiny flash of ethanol at the tail end, but very clean and appealing aromatics overall.
Quite sweet on the palate, impressively so for the Foursquare-sourced spirit with no added sugar. Simple syrup and honeydew. Banana and mango. There are vanillas there, but more Tahitian than Madagascar. Light and fruity. A gentle tingle on the finish, then the sweetness returns, drawing saliva and setting up shop for a pleasant while.
Gonna be honest, this is quite impressive for 20 bones. Delicious, plenty of flavor, and honest as far as rum goes. On par for quality and flavor with the also delicious Plantation 3-Star bottle, but gets the nod for avoiding the added sugar (albeit a few bucks more expensive). I will need to sample against other foursquare entry-levels (Doorly's, Probitas) to see if this one still stands out, but a great value for the $.
20.0
USD
per
Bottle
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@Peter-Rivera-Pierola I appreciate the inspiration to revisit this. The Jamaican component in Probitas is both more challenging and complex/interesting than this, but although you can identify the same DNA I think Probitas is notably a full step smoother. There are edges of budget rum that show in the McCoy 3 but otherwise I think the floral fruitiness is very similar and likely the Foursquare components come from very similar stock. Unfortunately Doorly’s doesn’t seem to get distributed in my area. Short story is that the McCoy is mostly only soft fruit and much more neutral, but a bit less sophisticated as well. I’d say these two serve different purposes given the herbal complexity of the Probitas, but if you could only choose one bottle I’d go with Probitas over the McCoy, which I see occupying the top of the budget mixer market.
Were you able to compare it against the Doorlys 3 year/Macaw White? Probitas is still my favorite, though I can no longer find it easily.