Zaya Gran Reserva Rum

Zaya is the rum enthusiasts use as the benchmark for sweet — Inu A Kena's readers describe other rums as not nearly as sweet as Zaya — and it has legions of fans who want exactly that. Zaya began in Guatemala and moved production to Trinidad in 2008, where it's now made at the House of Angostura in Laventille: molasses rum, column-distilled, blended from rums aged up to twelve years in ex-bourbon oak in the Trinidadian heat, and bottled at 40% ABV in a tall bottle with the brand's Mayan-inspired label. Rum Ratings' drinkers score the Gran Reserva 12 a solid 7.2 and describe the house style plainly: rich vanilla, caramel, toffee, honey, and baked banana on the nose, a thick, velvety, dessert-sweet palate of butterscotch, brown sugar, and warm spice, and a long, sweet finish — smooth enough that many pour it for friends who think they don't like rum. Expect a dark amber pour and a profile closer to a liqueur-like sipping rum than a dry, funky one. Honest note, and it's the whole point: Zaya is a dosed, sweet-style rum in the Guatemalan tradition it came from, and the 12 is a blend statement rather than a minimum age — dry-rum purists should look elsewhere, and dessert-rum lovers should look no further. For an after-dinner pour over one cube, a cigar, a Rum Old Fashioned that needs no sugar, or the friend who loves Zacapa. Trinidad, in the sweet style.

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