Matusalem Gran Reserva 23 Year Rum

The Rum Howler scored Matusalem 23 a 92.5 — bold flavors, tempered sweetness, and his suggestion is an Old Fashioned. Matusalem was founded in Santiago de Cuba in 1872 by two Spanish brothers who brought brandy-making expertise to rum, and became one of the island's great houses before the 1959 revolution forced the family into exile; after decades of feuding among the heirs, a 1995 settlement let the brand relaunch in 2002, made in the Dominican Republic to the original Cuban formula. Gran Reserva 23 is the flagship: Cuban-style column rum from molasses, aged in an oak-cask solera — the fractional blending system the founders borrowed from sherry, where 23 is the solera's designation rather than a guaranteed age — and bottled at 40% ABV in a heavy decanter with the swallow embossed at the base. Difford's found a reassuringly dry sipper: cinnamon, nutmeg, milk chocolate, crème caramel, espresso, and vanilla, medium-to-full, dry and spicy, with cigar leaf and nutty caramel. Master of Malt: fresh honey, golden syrup, almond, cedar, creamy and rich. Rum Ratings' drinkers find toffee, orange, fudge, cherry, butterscotch, and marzipan, sweet but not cloying with an earthy, tingling finish. Honest note, and The Rum Howler raised it: it's Dominican, not Cuban, whatever the label implies, and 23 is a solera number, not an age — one drinker found it less oaky than the number suggests. For an Old Fashioned, a cigar, or neat over ice, it's the Cuban formula in a Dominican glass.

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