ALDI Old Hopking White Rum

Price:
£9.99 - 70cl

A few weekends ago we invited some friends over with the plan being to cook some Caribbean food. Needing some drinks to go with that, I ventured into Aldi to pick up ingredients to make Pina Coladas and Strawberry Daiquiris - a good white rum being essential for both, I purchased this bottle of Aldi's own brand. 

The rum is clearly taking aim at Bacardi Carta Blanca, a rum with a rich history and few real rivals. I always have Bacardi in stock which made direct comparisons with this Aldi rum very easy to do. On opening the bottle, the smell was less distinct than Bacardi, and that theme ran throughout everything we did with this rum. Two side by side Pina Coladas made with the rival products produced a clear, distinct winner. The unmistakable flavour of Bacardi wasn't present when using the Aldi rum. This could be remedied by using slightly more of the Aldi rum, but that negates the fact that it is cheaper, and also got us tipsy faster as the alcohol percentage is the same at 37.5%!

Strawberry Daiquiris and rum and cokes followed and each time we had the same issue - We needed to pretty much double the measure of rum each time. Suffice to say, the bottle didn't last long! With the quantities increased, this is a decent rum with a nice flavour and none of the drinks we made that night went unfinished. 

As far as price goes, this rum is fairly good value at under £10. A bottle of Bacardi of the same size retails for £16 but is regularly on offer for £13, so a small saving can be made by buying this. 

If you love the unique favour of Bacardi then this rum is not for you at all. As a cheap and more subtle alternative though, this is a reasonable product. Cocktails will be more understated and a rum and coke made with this will be adequate enough. The only time I could see myself buying this again would be for a party to batch make a large number of something, I think on balance though, it's probably worth paying the few pounds extra for Bacardi in almost all circumstances.