While offering pleasant sojourning, the Guatemalan rum landscape does not exactly excite with its variety. Everything comes from a single company, Industrias Licoreras de Guatemala, though that company produces at least two labels – Zacapa and Botran.

Zacapa represents the glamorous international face of Guatemalan rum: attractive, commercialized, definitely expensive, and while it makes for exceedingly pleasant company, you can’t help suppressing the occasional yawn and wondering how thick that make up is. Botran in contrast is the slightly homely stay-at-home sister, working a nine-to-five job and hurrying home to cook instead of mixing with high society, and generally getting taken for granted by all and sundry. Zacapa smugly preens itself from little clusters of high priced bottles in duty free stores and on the top shelves of smarter bars, while Botran runs itself ragged covering the shelves of local supermarkets and bars, where it jostles for attention with the anise liqueur that is ubiquitous in Latin America.The question then is this: does Zacapa deserve to be Guatemala’s Ambassador of Rum?

Being a rebel, and a fan of rum with a glow to it, I’m going to support the underdog and say I rather like Botran.

Exhibits A through E follow.

Botran X/L

A clear rum with a smooth sweet taste, and a staple in Guatemalan bars for mixing rum cocktails. The smooth sweetness is typical of Central American rums. An obvious comparison rum would be Flor de Caña, but Botran X/L is rougher, with a slight spiciness, and an almost chewy graininess. Not especially exciting but does the job.

Botran Anejo 12 Años

This aged rum near the top end of the Botran line is inexpensive and was my regular rum in Guatemala. It is fairly ubiquitous, though Botran also produce a cheaper Anejo 8 Años and Añejo Oro. Unfortunately I enjoyed the Añejo 12 Años so much that I never got around to writing notes on the two younger rums. Anyway, the Añejo 12 Años is a dark honey colored rum with a syrupy body, gentle alcoholic glow, pleasant dry spice notes and a hint of woody bitterness. I found it a rewarding but undemanding sipper, as well as a base for an exceptionally smooth and rich rum and coke – best with a touch of lime to temper all the sweetness.

Botran Solera 1893 Añejo

This tasty rum pours with a light copper-color and a viscous consistency, forming thick legs that slide slowly down the glass. The nose is sweet and rich, and carries a clear woody note reminiscent of incense – sandalwood maybe? A dash of cinnamon or canella also lurks in there. Tasting reveals sweetness with a soft glow (hotter than Zacapa), building into a mouthful of light woody spice. Though the body is sweet, the flavors are dry and austere, without the fruitiness of Zacapa. The taste does not evolve much, though an initial trace of wild honey slowly builds into something substantial. The aftertaste lingers long and pleasantly – the sign of a good rum.

I like this rum. It has a unique flavor, with all that spicy wood reminding me of a Catholic Church. That said, it is rather sweet, and while the flavors are interesting they are not especially deeply layered. I get the impression of sipping an intricately spiced cake syrup with an dry perfumed edge rather than a complex spirit.

My conclusion? This is a simple but interesting rum with unusual flavors I happen to like.

Ron Zacapa 15

I was keen to try this one. My first taste of Zacapa 23 impressed me, but it seemed that the more I tasted it the more I was left wanting something a little sharper. Perhaps Zacapa 15 was the answer? You don’t see the Zacapa 15 around very much, but I finally got my opportunity to try it in Flores airport, where the café was selling miniatures.

The Zacapa 15 pours a light gold rather than the very deep copper of the Zacapa 23, but has a similar viscous consistency. The nose initially reminded me of Botran, being light and spicy, but the fruitiness of Zacapa 23 was also there in a reduced dose. The taste was far more fiery and assertive than Zacapa 23, with a strong tingling bite on the front of the tongue, a peppery mouth feel, plus a lingering bitterness I didn’t recall from Zacapa 23. For a sweet and syrupy rum it came across as surprisingly sharp, though it didn’t have the dry edge of Botran. The flavors are intense but not particularly well integrated. There are strong fruity notes, but an odd underlying acidity makes it hard to place the fruit. Things improve as you get into it though, with pleasant vanilla emerging to smooth the rough edges. I end up thinking of vanilla ice-cream and stewed fruit – served in a bowl that accidentally got a drop or two of gasoline in it.

If the above sounds unfair, I should stress that a single taste of this rum was not enough. I would have to try it again sometime to give it a fair go. Still, if you are looking for Zacapa with a little more ‘edge’ the Zacapa 15 may not work, since it comes across as rather different to its older relative. Overall I was disappointed, and left thinking Zacapa 23 is still the better of the two.

Ron Zacapa 23

I already reviewed this rum here, so I’ll basically leave it at that. Nice but overrated. Though having said that, if you have never tried this rum it makes an interesting eye opener.

Zacapa and coke was a popular request among Americans staying in Antigua. Although I never partook I’m not sure I like the sound of it. Zacapa is already so smooth and sweet it hardly needs further sweetening and dilution.

There is some controversy about whether Zacapa have modified their formula over the years. Many say the old fully palm-wrapped bottles tasted better. A little palm-wrapped miniature Zacapa 23 stuffed in a display case behind the bar in my hotel in Guatemala City seemed to give me a chance to do a compare and contrast.

Tasting the dusty palm-wrapped miniature against a glass from a new bottle did reveal some differences. The older Zacapa had less fruitiness and acidity, more dark cane flavors, a warmer ‘rumminess’, and perhaps a little dash of the funkiness from Appleton Estate. Of course some of the differences in taste I noticed could have come from the length of time the miniature had been lying around, probably exposed to warm bar lights etc. There was something a vaguely ‘cooked’ about its flavor.

Conclusion

Zacapa gets all the attention but Botran is worth a closer look. Both are sweet rums, but Botran offers a drier style at a more attractive price. By giving Botran a go, Zacapa fans can broaden their horizons with an alternative Guatemalan rum, while Zacapa haters may finally find a Guatemalan rum they enjoy.

While passing through Panama’s very pleasant airport en route from Haiti to Guatemala I picked up a sample pack of Nicaragua’s Flor de Caña rum.  While I had heard lots of good things about this rum I had never really tried it.

I have to be honest and say this rum did not exactly grab me.  Mind you, I do not have anything very bad to say about it either.  Flor de Caña make nice smooth rums.  But while they are fine rums, to me they are not especially interesting.

Flor de Caña Extra Dry (4 year old rum at 40%):  Light, dry, honeyish nose.  Tasting reveals a pleasant, somewhat honeyish rum.  There seems to be a faint hint of chocolate.  Despite the honeyish profile this rum is not cloyingly sweet.  I like this.  There is a little burn, but I would consider it a smooth rum.  Although the rum goes down quite nicely, I get an odd plastic note I do not much care for – this flavor seems to hang around in the background of both the nose and the taste.  Overall, a smooth, unexciting mixing rum that is not offensive when taken straight, and that strikes an interesting balance between sweet and dry.

Flor de Caña Gold (4 year old rum at 40%): Similar honeyish nose to the Extra Dry.  The palate is a little sweeter than the extra dry, the honey is stronger, and there seems to be a faint hint of caramel.  Unfortunately I also get an unpleasant suggestion of something astringent, on top of the same plastic note I got from the Extra Dry.  I like this less than the Extra Dry and would not want to drink it unmixed.  However, it mixes smoothly enough with coke.

Flor de Caña Black Label (5 year old rum at 40%):  The same honey nose as above, but more intense and now carrying light floral notes.  The palate is significantly smoother and fuller than the two younger rums.  There is a fairly deep honey flavor, along with a hint of sharpness, and a suggestion of some kind of blossom – maybe orange blossom.  I still get a hint of the plastic I found in the two younger rums, but it is no longer distracting.  This borders on being a sipper, and is undoubtedly a flavorsome mixing rum.

Flor de Caña Grand Reserve (7 year old rum at 40%): Rich honey nose with an underlying spiciness, perhaps wild honey rather than generic mass-produced honey. The palate is full-flavored honey, with a rich toffee undercurrent.  These smooth sweet tastes share the stage with some spicy, woody and vanilla notes.  While the rum itself is not especially syrupy, flavorwise it is all about sweet and simple tastes – basically there is not that much going on.  Incidentally, the plastic note from the younger rums is gone.  This rum strikes me as too boring to sip, but I can see it working for those who appreciate smoothness and subtlety.  As a mixer this stuff is clearly quality.  Save it for drinks that will show up its rich smoothness.  Makes a sensational rum and coke for those times when you want something smooth, but go easy on the coke to avoid drowning this rather tasty rum.

Flor de Caña Centenario (12 year old rum at 40%): This rum was not part of my airport sample pack.  I tried it a couple of times in a bar in Antigua.  Unlike with the above rums I never did a side-by-side comparison.  In any case, the Centenario did not strike me as a radical step up from the Grand Reserve.  This is another rich, smooth, honeyish rum.  Alongside the honey I got a little spice and woodiness, but there were not exactly layers upon layers of flavor to explore.  I need to try this rum again.  However, for now I will rate it similarly to the Grand Reserve – i.e. a sipper for people who appreciate subtlety and prefer a mainstream and inoffensive taste, and perhaps a high quality mixer for drinks that showcase the rum.

My conclusion?  I would be pleased to find the Flor de Caña rums at hand, but I probably wouldn’t make a huge effort to seek them out.  That is, I can see myself buying them from my local liquor store, but I can’t see myself hunting them out when traveling and stashing them in my luggage to carry home, ordering online, or doing anything too extreme to get hold of them. I do not find them interesting sipping rums, but they all make for a pleasant rum and coke of the smoother variety (i.e. rummy richness rather than rummy bite).  As mixing rums, the longer aged offerings would work well in rum-heavy drinks that require smoothness and silkiness.  I can see the Black Label or Grand Reserve making a great El Presidente.  I tend to favor more assertive rums, but Flor de Caña should work nicely when something smooth, rich, and undemanding is required.