Buy Goslings

Goslings traces back to 1806, when the family set up shop in Bermuda. The house still blends there today under the seventh generation, and its rums are imported and matured stock rather than distillate from a single estate, blended and finished to the Goslings profile.

The rums are column-still blends aged in ex-bourbon barrels. Black Seal is the flagship dark rum; Old Rum (“Family Reserve”) marries older stocks for a richer sipper; the 151 Proof Black Rum runs at 75.5% and is a classic overproof for lighting cocktails and for backbone in tiki drinks; Gold Seal is the lighter mixing expression; and one-offs like the Papa Seal single barrel and Spirited Seas, aged in barrels carried at sea, round out the 16 bottlings catalogued here.

Expect a dark, molasses-driven style. Reviewers pull out burnt caramel, treacle, coffee, dark chocolate and dried fruit, with a spicy, sometimes bitter edge and a short finish on the entry-level bottles. A number of drinkers note added sugar, roughly 20 grams per litre on some expressions, and a nose that can read flat or chemical on Black Seal.

Most people reach for Black Seal in a Dark ’n’ Stormy, mixed with ginger beer and lime, where several reviewers call it the best base for that drink. The 151 goes into zombies and other overproof cocktails, though a few found it soft enough to sip. The Family Reserve is the one to pour neat or over ice, where its raisin, coffee and chocolate notes open up. If you like a bourbon-drinker’s rum, Spirited Seas leans that way.