Pitú Cachaça
Category: Cane, White
Country: Brazil
Aged: None
Alcohol: 40% (80 proof)
Availability: Almost Everywhere
Price: $16-$23 (1 L)
Appearance (0-5): 2
Aroma (0-25): 6
Taste (0-35): 8
Smoothness (0-10): 4
Body (0-5): 2
Overall Quality (0-20): 2
Machete Rating (0-100): 24
Notes: Cachaça is the rum of Brazil, using pure cane juice with little to no aging. And Pitú is the Bacardi (or, considering its likeness to vodka, Smirnoff) of Brazil: standard, cheap, and widely available. It is industrially produced and completely unaged. Right away, the bottle is opened and wow... some potent smelling stuff. One sniff of this South American moonshine might just make rasins of your eyeballs. Dominating aromas of corn, tin, and alcohol. The taste is patently disgusting on its own, and though it's far from smooth, it's not as harsh as the smell would suggest. There's a good reason cheap cachaça is also known in Brazil as agua que passarinho não bebe, or "water that even birds won't drink." As an ingredient in mixed drinks, it's poor and I can't recommend it - especially considering the price. For mixing in caipirinhas, it's barely acceptable (but Mae De Ouro, Leblon, Ypioca, Beleza Pura are all better options). Pitú is probably best suited for sanitizing wounds. Otherwise, avoid.
Category: Dark
Notes: I had high hopes for Bacardi Select (also known as Bacardi Black, but not to be confused with the 6-year Bacardi Añejo). There were some moderately positive reviews online (mixed in with a number of mediocre reviews) and the bottle looked tempting on the shelves (especially for the discounted price of $9.99). Too bad I had to open it. Liquid is an attractive dark amber. It presents an overpowering aroma of sour fruit and varnish with hints of caramel, molasses and bitters. Sipping this neat is a mistake. Tasting notes of white pepper, sweat, and wood with the harsh, dry finish of cheap white rum. A second taste reveals an extremely faint bittersweet cane. Salty aftertaste. It may have some age, but it lacks maturity. Dropping ice cubes and a splash of water helps, though not much as it simply tones it down to an average young rum taste. But not all is disaster... cutting it with coke (not diet, so as to compensate for the missing sweetness) rounds out the rum a bit and brings the fruit and oak to the forefront. With ginger ale and a squeeze of lemon, it's OK. Adding it as a boat drink floater might be the best way to enjoy this rum as its bitter flavors and dryness make a relatively decent contrast to super-sweet mixes. Bacardi 8 and Bacardi 1873 Solera both blow Select out of the water. I think it aims to be Myers's [sic] Dark but it clearly comes up very short. Even finding it for $10 might not be worth it.
Category: Infused
Notes: Let's be honest: one doesn't buy this "lite spirit" looking for premium taste. Its purpose is to provide the approximate flavor without so many calories. The aroma and taste is completely artificial - like berry bubblegum (even moreso than Bacardi Razz, which I assume is what Bacardi is providing this as an alternative to) - and the body is thin. Mixed into weak drinks, it serves its purpose, though I'd throw in some other rum to balance the flavor and up the alcohol content. Then again, that would defeat the purpose of a 1/2-the-calories rum. Actually, I'm not convinced this really is rum. And thus why I have to give this guy a low rating: it's not that it's bad tasting, per se, it's just too artificial and too little like rum to merit many points. If you want rum, I recommend just sticking to something better and running a few laps in the morning.
Category: Gold
Notes: The light amber color in the bottle looks promising, but when poured it's a bit thin and cheap and a little uinviting. On its own the soft molasses and spice aroma is not bad, but once the sucker hits your lips, it's all downhill. It's harsh (not quite 'mellow and smooth' as the label would have you believe) and has no specific flavors except maybe standard molasses and wood, which is overpowered by a general taste of alcohol. The burn carries down your throat where it finds a soft seat in your belly and starts preperations for a hangover party. Neat and on the rocks, not surprisingly, are horrible and not how this rum should be drank (drunk?). And despite it being such a standard in frat house rum and cokes (I know it was a staple of my liquid diet once upon a time), I don't think it even cooperates that well with sodas. In mixed drinks where it can blend with other spirits, such as