u/10art1

I have a spice rack of small jars, and any extra spices are kept in a top cabinet. I looked at it 6 months later and the hinges are rusted and some of my bags look slightly melted. None of my other hinges look this bad.

#Story

This past weekend I was at NY Rum Fest for the first time, and it was a fantastic experience. Imagine a conference room with about 30 tables, each of them with a different company, some offering 20+ bottles for tasting. Obviously, I could not try everything; even pacing myself and only taking small sips, I feel like I made it through less than a third of the bottles on offer. I definitely will be coming back next year!

Of course, I took a lot of notes, but I wanted to start with spotlighting one company in particular. Nicoya's table was different from the rest because Pierre (pictured in the Pura Vida shirt holding the bottles) pulled a Hampden Estate and actually brought Nicoya's individual marks for us to taste. Nicoya currently produces 3 marks: aguardientes of cane juice, cane syrup (aka cane honey), and molasses. Instead of using the much more common continuous multi-column setup, each ferment is batch-distilled in copper pot stills and then re-distilled in a copper column, before being blended together to make both the Blanco and Añejo bottlings. Pierre let me try all three of the marks, and I won't rate them since they're not for individual sale, but I wanted to share my feelings about them.

Cane juice: Immediately reminiscent of Haitian cane spirits like Clairin Sajous. Vegetal, peppery, fruity, and sharp.

Cane syrup: This one was more complex. There was still some vegetal notes, but now it was more deep, robust, and smoky, like Clairin Le Rocher, or Caña Criolla from The Rums of Mexico, with an aftertaste of buttered popcorn.

Cane molasses: Interestingly, on the nose and initial palate, this one was the most subdued. Just typical notes of column still rum, but it had a deep umami note to it that I couldn't quite put my finger on.

After trying each individually, I asked to have all three mixed together. The result was like an orchestra, where the cane juice was the top note, cane syrup was the melody, and molasses was the bass. Then I asked for more molasses because you always need more bass. It was actually incredible, and had it not been near the end of rum fest with a few more tables to visit, I would have stayed and played around with the blending some more. It was so fun! What other producer lets you taste cane juice, cane syrup, and molasses rums all produced from the same place in the exact same way, side-by-side?

But, I am posting a review of the two available rums, so without further ado..

#Statistics

Price: $20 / 700mL

Alcohol content: 40%

Base fermentable: Blend of cane juice, cane syrup, and molasses rums, fermented separately and temperature controlled at 28-32C using purchased Lallemand yeasts.

Origin: Taboga Sugar Factory, Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica

Distillation: each separately batch-distilled in 5,000-liter copper pot stills, then re-distilled in a 14-plate copper column still, to a final abv of 82% for the juice and 88% ABV for syrup and molasses.

Aging:

Blanco: 95% unaged, 5% Añejo blended in

Añejo: each separately aged, mostly in Green River Tennessee and Wild Turkey Kentucky ex-bourbon barrels. No age statement.

Flavorings and added sugar: Stated 12g/L of added sugar.

#Review

Smell:

For context, this is happening at a rum fest and rum is being poured and carried around all around me, so subtle aromatic notes can easily be lost.

Blanco: Way lighter than the aguardiente blend that I just nosed. Compared to that, it doesn't really have much going on.

Añejo: Similarly, quite light, and doesn't have much of a nose.

Taste:

Blanco: I did swirl water around in my mouth between trying the three marks and these samples, but still, it's not exactly a fresh start. Even so, Blanco definitely came off as noticably more dialed back compared to the marks. It was not completely bland, but more along the lines of Hamilton Breezeway Blend, which is the closest rum in taste, in my opinion. It seems like Blanco might make a great daiquiri candidate, but unfortunately, I had no means of trying that at the time.

Añejo: The aged rum tastes pretty significantly different from the Blanco. It's still pretty light, but it has notes of oak, vanilla, caramel, and molasses, and less grassy brightness that you get in the Blanco. It leans more like a typical "Spanish-style" aged rum, and it's also noticably sweet, but not terribly so.

#Verdict: 6.5/10, 6/10

I am using my rating scale based on t8ke for these values.

This review partly exists because I wanted to share my experience at Nicoya's table, and also there are basically no reviews for this rum. I think that neither bottling is fantastic, but at $20, they are competitive with Appleton Signature for value, which I consider to be a benchmark of budget rum. I gave Appleton Signature a 6.5/10 as well, and I am happy to sip it, so I may have to keep an eye out for Nicoya. Añejo was a bit more subdued, but still pretty good for an aged $20 rum.

I also tried their two flavored expressions, Pasión and Pineapple, though I didn't rate them. I'm no expert on flavored rums, however I can say that there's a lot of flavored rums out there that taste really artificial, and I did not get that from these two. They were actually pretty good.

You may have noticed that none of the rums carry an age statement. Neither the Añejo, XA, XO, etc. This caught my attention, partly because I've previously reviewed Les Bienheureux's other product, El Pasador de Oro, a solera-aged rum sourced from the same distillery that makes Zacapa and finished in cognac casks in France. I reached out to Pierre on this subject.

>Q: None of the Nicoya expressions carry an age statement. Can you explain the reasoning for that decision? Was it a philosophical choice, or are some expressions solera aged and therefore don't have a true age statement?

>A: Rum is a category with no rules in which the consumer is misleaded with false statements. When it comes to ageing, I'm often surprised to see some 15 to 30 'years old rums' produced in some countries with 10% evaporation per year. These competitors use the age of the oldest drop in the blend as the 'reference' year. Our rums are young and proud to be young. We have no dogma on the age our añejo can be 6 month, 1 year or 3 years old, we bottle it when we considered that it has an age profile with the oakiness well balanced with the rum. We use no solera.

That seems like a completely fair position, and it seems like Pura Vida was their move from sourcing and finishing rum to actually running a distillery, and the rebranding to Nicoya emphasizes their commitment to the product's origin.

But there's one last thing worth pointing out: Nicoya's marketing is built entirely around the fact that their rum is completely single-estate. They even describe themselves as Costa Rica's only cane-to-bottle rum. The single-estate terroir is clearly central to Nicoya's identity. In other markets, they have other expressions, such as XA (Extra Añejo), which is aged in ex-bourbon barrels in Costa Rica, then shipped to France to be finished in Cognac casks. More broadly, all Nicoya expressions are shipped to France for bottling, regardless of where they were aged. I reached out to Pierre about this for comment:

>Q: The single-estate terroir is clearly central to Nicoya's identity. How do you think about the cognac cask finishing in France for the XA in that context?

>A: We see the cognac ageing in France as a 'terroir' approach because it reveals through the rum the philosophy of the makers who came originally from the wine/cognac world before entering the rum category.

There's something to the argument that since the rum makers are French and their expertise is in cognac, then finishing in cognac is an expression of who they are. Though, in my opinion, if the story is how much the land matters, shipping your rum to France for finishing works against that narrative. It's just something worth keeping in mind when considering the brand. In a similar vein, Nicoya has been fully transparent about dosage, which is appreciated, but the 12g/L of added sugar does present another slight contrast to their claims of purity.

On a final note, lot of this information has only been possible because Pierre was very responsive and engaged openly with my questions, and he even sent me a full media package and several powerpoints. In the past, I've reached out to the makers of Zacapa and Dictador and have gotten no response, so I greatly appreciate Pierre's knowledge and accessibility.

Link to my previous review

Link to my first review

My mom moved here and knew that I like tiki, so she recommended I check the place out. Seems like a tourist trap. High prices and meh quality. A Mai Tai with bacardi and diplo and served in a plastic pool cup just feels soulless