Havana Club Rum 3 Year Old Review And Tasting Notes

First and then, you have to taste the Havana Club 3-year-old, a clear Cuban rum among the best-selling in the world for its sterile taste, economical price, and excellent ductility. And its great strength is its docility, its bland taste that does not cover the other ingredients, because it is not a tasting rum, you will not humanize it in a nice balloon glass in front of the fireplace, but to make drinks over and over again.

Let’s immediately put aside prejudices, performance anxieties, and snobbery. It is an industrial rum produced from molasses. We are not talking about an agricultural rum, and therefore, it must be judged for what it is. Needless to say, it’s useless to say I like it or dislike it, or I prefer Bacardi or Plantation 3 stars rum. Styles and prices are different.

What must be admitted is that the 3-year Havana Club rum is distilled with good value for money. You know what you buy. The quality is expensive, and if you have to make classic cocktails like Mojito, Daiquiri, Cuba Libre, Pina Colada, where you need a fruity, light, and very lean rum with a lightly spicy background.

How is Havana Club Anejo 3 Anos made?

It comes from the distillation of molasses, from the waste left over after boiling the cane juice to produce sugar. Molasses is less aromatic than pure cane juice, but it is nonetheless aromatic and full of fragrances.

The molasses is fermented by adding selected yeasts, and then through double distillation, a white rum with strong alcohol content is obtained.

The rum ages for 3 years in barrels used for the production of American Bourbon, thus finding more softness, absorbing tannic, fruity, and slightly smoky flavors from the barrels. After three years, it’s rounded, and so the rum is filtered, like vodka, with activated carbon to make it more transparent and purer. Water is added to lower the alcohol content to 40 degrees.

Organoleptic characteristics

The bouquet is delicate, played on the succession of classic tropical, fruity, and almond scents with more acid tones bordering on herbaceous and citrus. Few flowers, few spices, reminiscent of cane, and the classic slightly syrupy aroma of Cuban white rums. Simple, but it does its duty.

On the palate, it is consistent with the nose. It is soft and caramelized, but at least it shows a particular acid vein that cuts the hot fruit reminiscent of banana, marzipan, lemon, and vanilla. Ends with a barely woody echo. It is a simple rum: stylized, fruity, pleasant, not deep. But it’s ok. It does not want and must not be a deep and complex rum. It is a working distillate, so adding body or thickness would not make sense.

It is useless to compare it to Plantation 3 stars rum… of course, it is much tastier, but the latter costs almost double, 22 euros, against 12.

Price

€ 9-10 for the 0.7-liter bottle, while the 1-liter battle-sized bottle costs 13. There’s nothing to say: the price is excellent.

Cocktail to do with the Havana Club rum 3 years

Mojito, Mai Tai, Daiquiri, Painkiller, Dark and Stormy, Canchanchara, Pina Colada, Cuba Libre, Basito, Hurricane.