Cigar Spirits: The Lash Spiced Rum

When it comes to choosing a sipping rum, I almost always prefer a gold rum, which obtains its color from barrel aging. Some of my favorite gold rums include Plantation, Ron Zacapa, El Dorado, and Zaya. These exemplary spirits always seem to strike the right chord when prepared neat or on the rocks as a cigar companion.

These days I rarely reach for spiced rums, which usually have gold rums as bases but add in extra spices for flavor. Perhaps because of the most prevalent rum in the category, Captain Morgan, I don’t think of spiced rums as sipping rums. Instead, I think of them as components of cocktails, like rum punch or Cuba libre.

The folks over at The Lash are aiming to change that. Dubbed “the reinvention of spiced rum” (a tagline I can’t help but compare to Drew Estate’s “the rebirth of cigars”), The Lash is comprised of a 70-proof, 4-year-old rum from Trinidad and Tobago that’s aged in oak and finished in The Netherlands by adding a proprietary mix of spices. Unlike most other spiced rums, so I’m told, The Lash doesn’t add artificial colors or liquid flavorings to the recipe. A bottle sells in the affordable $25-30 range.

After popping the synthetic cork and pouring the dark, viscous rum into a glass, the thickness of the spirit is immediately apparent, as is a nose of vanilla, burnt sugar, mulled spice, and nutmeg. Since the spices aren’t distilled (they’re mixed into the rum with hot water), you may see some sediment in the bottom of the bottle or in the glass, but I hardly noticed this.

Once sipped, the taste is intense, syrupy, and characterized by cinnamon, vanilla, oak, and licorice. At the risk of having my palate called into question, the finish reminds me a little of Jägermeister, which isn’t a spirit I’m particularly fond of. That said, this is a dark, spicy rum with a ton going on in the flavor department. I can see this being a hit with people who are looking for a rum with a forceful mixture of spices.

Despite the intentions of The Lash’s creators, for me this rum is better suited to cocktails than sipping neat or on the rocks. I found it to produce a unique taste with Diet Coke and a little lime—one that’s predictably more spice-forward than, say, Captain Morgan. I can also see it making an interesting cable car, or maybe even using it as a replacement for bourbon in a Stonewall Jackson during the winter months.

–Patrick A

photo credit: The Lash