Review: Ron Zacapa Centenario 23 Solera Rum

Color (5%):  Very deep dark amber. Dark caramel. thinning to hay yellow at the edges. 3/5

Nose (10%): Nice brown sugary molasses sweetness. Nice purple dried fruits come through from those PX sherry casks, raisins, dates, and prunes. Faint spices come through, nutmeg and allspice. Mild oak comes through.  8/10

Palate (20%): Lots of sweetness, very sugary for an aged rum. I don't mean sugar flavor, I mean this is not dry, it is sweet. Artificial additives are allowed in rums and I suspect this is the case here. It's a dark caramel treacle sweetness. The fruit is less dried and more ripe or fermented. Notes of banana peel, powdered cocoa mix, walnut, dried orange peel, and bergamot. Not very much oak character. This is certainly used wood and it's not giving much fresh oak flavor. That bourbon doesn't present forward much at all. Fake caramel flavor and vanilla come through but toasted oak does not. 14/20

Finish (10%): Lots of nuts and dried fruit. Lingering molasses. The booziness does linger in the throat for quite a while. It's not overly harsh it just sticks around for ages. 8/10

Overall Impression and Harmony (30%): This is a pretty complex rum. Waves of flavors come and go washing over you. This is a bit sweet for my own taste. I could see it mixing incredibly well in daiquiris and tiki drinks. This is okay to sip neat but it is just too sweet for a typical whiskey drinker like me. I can't give it full marks but it is pretty good. I prefer unadulterated rums typically. 25/30

Retry on Ice (25%): That fake brown sugar flavor comes out even more over ice. Arguably worse than neat. I could see this rum in spirit-forward cocktails as a part of a split base with cognac or whiskey. That with some bitters could be nice. But when I don't like the sweetness and then the sweetness gets stronger. I feel like I'm going to get a headache from this. 17/25

Total Ranking: 75% Legendary, Amazing, Great, Good, Fair, Average, Tolerable, Swill

Estimated Fair Price: $38

Actual Price: $45

Conclusion:  Unfortunately this rum has been sweetened and has a misleading age statement. This is a solera-style aged rum so there is a tiny bit of 23-year-old aged rum in the bottle but it's not all 23 years old. Most of this rum is about 6 years old from what I gather, which is fine. Rum doesn't have the same legal restrictions on age statements as scotch so they are often misleading. If you do your research on the product or innately know what solera means you might not be fooled but when someone sees the number 23 on a bottle they get excited, especially when it's reasonably priced. This is a solid C. It's not impressive or top-tier in the rum world but it's not a failure. 

Fact Sheet:

Company: Diageo

Distillery Location: Guatemala

Aged in American Whiskey and various sherry casks

ABV: 40%