Review: Brinley Gold Shipwreck Spiced Rum

Posted by Arctic Wolf on October 23, 2011

Robert and Zachary Brinley founded the St. Kitts Rum Company in the early 1990s to blend and market their Brinley Gold Rums on St. Kitts and in the United States. It is the stated goal of the company to make and market the “best tasting flavoured rums in the world“. To that end, the Brinley Gold Shipwreck Spiced Rum is produced using a rum blend which has been aged for four years in used American whisky and bourbon barrels. The rum is flavoured (or perhaps I should say spiced) with Madagascar vanilla, orange, nutmeg, clove, and other tropical spice flavors. It is blended as a mixing rum, but Brinley maintains that the rum is smooth enough to be enjoyed over ice.

As part of this review, three friends and I performed a side by side tasting comparing Brinley Gold Shipwreck Spiced Rum, with the Bacardi Oakheart Spiced Rum, and the standard bearer for the spiced rum category, Captain Morgan’s Original Spiced.

Each of these rums is produced from stocks which have been aged in American oak barrels. As well, each of these rums seems to walk the path of a vanilla and caramel rum accented by fragrant spices which compliment the rum but not to dominate it. With this similarity in style and production, a side by side tasting seemed only natural.

(I should note that a sample bottle of Brinley Gold Shipwreck Spiced Rum was provided to me for this review by the River Valley Beverage Group, which is the liquor agency responsible for distributing this rum in Alberta.)

Here is an excerpt from my review:

“… The flavour of the rum carries a bit of an oaky thread with butterscotch, and a strong push of vanilla riding in the currents. I taste some light baking spices as well as a very light indication of canned fruit (apricots and pears). There are some other spicy flavours which remind me of nutmeg and cloves…”

You may read the full review here: