Flor de Caña 18-Year

For an older rum the initial smell and taste is refreshingly grassy and citrus like. It evolves into notes of cherry raisins and oak in a nice long finish. Great sipper!

A rum slight bitter with som vanilla and something I can not identify...
Hay, grass or something...

Unremarkable. It’s certainly not bad, but if you like Flor De Cana just stick with the 12.

Rum light brown in color. Pleasant aroma. Slightly dry for me. Slightly sweet with no added sugar.

An easy rum to compare this to is the El Dorado 15 Year. Similar enough in age and price. I find this smoother but sweeter, and a bit less complex than the ED 15. I dunno the pricing everywhere, but here the ED 15 is also usually a couple bucks cheaper (both sitting between $40-50).

This is a bit lighter, creamier, and sweeter. I'd describe the ED 15 as almost thick in texture. It feels and tastes more robust while a bit rougher around the edges. Neat, they are both quite good while different. I think I would prefer ED 15 on the rocks and this neat if I had to choose. On that note, if you are mixing with either for some reason, this probably would be the better mixer due to smoothness.

Overall a good rum, I would rate this 7.5 vs an 8 for ED 15. Gave it the full 8 since it's close enough. I recommend the ED 15 just a tad more but you can't go wrong with this.

Smooth and flavorful. Nice aroma up front, nice backend taste, and smooth going down. Definitely a nice sipper to end the night

The smell is mainly vanilla. Taste is quite smooth, little bit spicy, considably dry and balanced. There is nothing that is too predominant in it. Nice present afterburn that leaves you with a nice aftertaste and a longing for the next sip. Not top of the line, but really enjoyable.

Smooth but not interesting enough to keep on my permanent shelf. Rated 7/10 for the full price ~$50 but recently grabbed a bottle on sale ~$38 during quarantine. I would bump rating to 8/10 at that price point.

I did a “vertical” tasting of the 4, 7, 12 & 18 simultaneously w/one of my sons. The results were exactly predictable and guided by the price points. It’s not unusual to have a lower aged rum best it’s elder “brother” but not here. The 4 & 7 are good for Cuba Libre’s while the 12 & 18 older brothers are better for sipping. Bottom line is that when I see the distillery promoting “ sustainably produced (Carbon Neutral & Fair Trade“ rather than the layers of flavors you know you’re not in the +8 range.

After paying the price I was expecting more. I did not enjoy as much as diplomatica reserva, which is a fair bit less expensive... but I do have a bit of a sweeter taste pallet.