Simple. May I quote myself:

“The Twiggie Tie Dye rums are those that, in the cause of marketing and sales, have gone over the top insofar as hiding unannounced flavors and additives. At best caramel, molasses, sugar, vanilla, orange, clove and other spices. At worst – and more likely – artificial, taste engineered adulterants. Pre or post distillation doesn’t matter; what does is that these additives, which likely include artificial flavorings, cover up or phony the rum to an obvious and excessive extent.”

Now mind you there are rums that I know have been altered, but that have been done so well that I’m simply not sure. I’m forced to accept that. But as you put it – and I couldn’t agree more – Zacapa is indeed liqueur like: to an extent well beyond the capabilities of even the most skilled distillation and aging. Unless the barrels are made of sugar, lol.

To me this rum represented the pinnacle of marketing hype, cool mountain aging akin to “mountain grown” coffee – only in the shade and under the personal supervision of Juan Valdez! The “23 anos” was long promoted as implying that the rum was indeed 23 years old, and as the respected Richard Seale put it “…maybe a teaspoon”. My own spreadsheet analysis would imply an average age of maybe 8 years based on their faux solera arrangement.

Now I’m not saying syrupy Zacapa 23 is a bad rum; indeed it garnered a “7″ (of ten), good but certainly not superior or outstanding. It represented a trend of “rum as liqueur” – designed more for new or less serious rum sippers, a trend thankfully past.

Think Flor de Cana with sugar. For more details on this and other Twiggie rums:

http://rumproject.com/rumforum//viewforum.php?f=11