Copalli Cacao Rum

Copalli Cacao is a chocolate rum with no sugar, no color, and no syrup — which, as Drinkhacker noted, makes it none of the things chocolate rum usually is. The Copal Tree Distillery was built in 2016 in the rainforest of southern Belize to give local families a living that didn't depend on logging, and it makes rum from a handful of ingredients: organic heirloom sugarcane pressed within two hours of hand-cutting, yeast, rainwater from the forest canopy, and here, cacao nibs grown, dried, and roasted at the distillery. The cane-juice rum is column-distilled and infused with the roasted nibs, bottled clear at 42% ABV. It took Best in Class Platinum at the 2023 SIP Awards. Drinkhacker found a clear spirit sharp on the nose with the petrol-laced pungency of a classic white rum — green herbs, underbrush, a buttery sweetness — with the chocolate reserved for the palate, where a bittersweet cocoa-nib character melds with the cane funk and a light brown-sugar sweetness. Paste found the cacao intense on the palate, the star of the show. Expect dark chocolate as an aroma and a flavor rather than a dessert — dry, roasted, faintly bitter — over a grassy, vegetal white rum, finishing clean. Honest note: it's a savory, unsweetened cacao rum, and drinkers wanting a chocolate liqueur will be surprised. For a Chocolate Daiquiri, an Espresso Martini riff, a cacao Old Fashioned, or a Mole-inspired cocktail, it's one of the most original bottles in rum. Rainforest cane, rainforest cacao.

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