Review: Matusalem Gran Reserva (Solera 15 Blender)

Posted by Arctic Wolf on June 14, 2011

It’s Tuesday again, and for the past six weeks I have been re-posting my earliest reviews every Tuesday for the sake of my newer readers who may have missed them. This week I am re-posting my very early review for Ron Matusalem Gran Reserva Rum. Like most of my earliest reviews this one is terse and to the point. I was sorely tempted to rewrite it to give the review more form and substance; but other fixing a few typos and adding a touch of clarification, I decided to leave it as it is. The review still gets the main point across, and that point is that this is a fine rum!

The Matusalem Gran Reserva is a “Solera Blended” rum which means that the red “Solera 15 Blender” stamp on the bottle does not indicate the youngest rum in the blend, rather it denotes the age of the oldest rum in the blend. (I believe an argument can be put forth that a teensy tiny fraction of the rum may be older; but, the relative amount of super aged rum in the blend is so small that to try to include its age in any sort of statement would be misleading.)

The Ron Matusalem Website does a pretty good job of describing the solera method and if you are interested you should give it a little read. However if you are more interested in my early review, then perhaps I should provide you with an excerpt:

“… This is very good; mellow vanilla and caramel are the dominant flavours. In fact mellow is the best description for this rum. It is very smooth which makes this a good rum to drink straight. There are no bitter notes or other flaws in the flavour profile, and on days when I feel like a more mellow drink this really hits the spot…”

You may read the full review here: