Mount Gay is an amazing company that has managed to maintain top quality along with it's growth. Its Sugar Cane Rum is counterintuitive. Though named as though it was a cane juice (agricultural) rum, it is molasses based. Though molasses-based it really does taste as though it were a fine quality agricultural like Haiti's Barbancourt.
A delicious contradiction. The reviews:
Sue Sea:
Me:Jimbo and I are big fans of Mount Gay; we'd really like to visit Barbados and get to tour MG and Seales as well. MG Sugar Cane Rum comes in a screw top, classic tall bottle - really pretty average in the world of rum. But the rum itself is really far from average. We live in Florida and have had the opportunity to visit the Everglades, also known as the "River of Grass", with very shallow waters wending its way through hundreds of miles of grasses, reeds, mangroves and the like. When you get out of the car, your first impression are those reedy aromas.
Those aromas were my first impression of Mount Gay Sugar Cane: reedy, bamboo-like, palm fronds, very lightly smoky wood (like a chicory/hickory/mesquite) , almondy and a little caramel. With breathing more and more light vanilla became apparent to me. The taste is very consistent but light, with a medium-light body, and very, very smooth. It is consistent with the vanilla carrying through. At mid palate a pepper, not clove, holds forth. Sugar Cane's finish is marvelous - very smooth and long and leaving that wonderful, lightly sweet and reedy aftertaste, more like a lightly woody glow. Sugar Cane displays what I call an echo that occurs at the end, and came back to the front of my mouth. Superb!
Mount Gay Sugar Cane is more about aroma and finish connected by its light taste. Still, this is one of my top three rums.
I honestly don't know how Mount Gay did it. A molasses rum that really does present as the sugar cane (juice) rum after which it is named. It's color is a brilliant light amber with a rare hint of a light green surface sheen. I found its aromas sweetly reedy, with light oak, a hint of vanilla and a bit of alcohol (but not offensively so). Sugar Cane's body is medium/light, completely consistent and buttery smooth. The late palate is very lightly peppery. The finish is long, very lightly peppery or woody and leaving you with a consistent aftertaste - the kind that, as Sue Sea loves to say...
It makes you want to drink more!
And as Sue Sea noted, Sugar Cane is what some might call a "hollow" rum - where the taste, though pleasant, is less remarkable, but is bracketed by more striking and memorable aromas and finish. However true, this is NOT a criticism. An exceptional rum that belongs in your collection.
Rating (10 is best): Sue Sea - 9, Jimbo - 8.