10 Cane Rum Review - Marketing Trumps Quality

A constant at our local ABC store is the bright orange label of 10 Cane Rum, sitting prominently at eye level on the shelf. The distillery is owned by LVMH Moët Hennessy - Louis Vuitton - which explains the marketing power. After several years of browsing I finally forked over the $30 to discover for myself, what the marketing buzz was all about.

The rum is produced in Trinidad using the "rhum agricole" technique - the first press of the sugar cane juice and not molasses - and allegedly requires the juice from 10 cane stalks to produce a single bottle of rum. This rum is then aged one year in new French oak and blended with a small dose of older Trinidadian rum. 

The rum pours a pale yellow and the nose, sweet alcohol.  Not a lot going on at this point - sweetness and burn. This trend continued on the palette with no noticeable flavor profile rising forth - just a general sweetness of brown sugar followed by a slow burn. Adding a few drops of water actually suppressed the sugar, but not the alcohol. Conclusion: not at all worth the price. You may ask, if the rum isn't anything special, why the almost empty bottle. The short answer - makes a decent (yet expensive) mixer for the Hemingway Josie Russell.