Tesco Dark Rum

Price:
£15.00 - 1L
£11.00 - 70cl
£5.75 - 35cl

Having recently run out of Kraken Black Rum, I ventured to Tesco and bought a small bottle of their dark rum. I had no idea how good this would be so opted to play it safe and buy the smallest bottle. That turned out to be a good decision as I was far from impressed with this rum. 

It was maybe unfair to replace Kraken with this as they're not remotely in the same league. Kraken has a beautiful, distinct and deep flavour and this Tesco offering was the opposite. The low end branded product this may be more comparable with is Captain Morgan Dark Rum, but this is still vastly inferior. 

Some people like to sip dark rum on its own, particularly Kraken, but for me the only great use of this type of rum is with ginger beer in the classic Dark N Stormy cocktail. Kraken is a bit overkill for this as the complexity and depth of the rum gets lost in the strong ginger beer flavour and it's also priced a little high for mixing. Captain Morgan's though is perfect. In a Dark N Stormy, this Tesco rum was a very poor substitute. The weakness led to a real lack of rum flavour in the drink and I found myself being forced to use twice the amount of this Tesco version than I normally use with Captain Morgan's.

The alcohol percentage of the Tesco rum is slightly lower than Captain Morgan's at 37.5% (CM is 40%), but it tastes like the compromise is far higher. Even on it's own, this rum lacks flavour and is notably lighter in colour than its rivals. Price wise, it's competitive, but Captain Morgan's can often be found for £13 per bottle and was even £11.50 in Sainsbury's just after Christmas as they tried to clear excess stock. With the far better branded rival only a couple of pounds more expensive, I can't recommend this rum at all.