I recently ran across a bartender who states he's tried a variety of rums in a series of blind tastings. Guess which ones won...
Aha! Plain old Appleton Gold. Comments are solicited..."In search of a great cuba libre I've done a fair number of blind rum tastings over the past couple years. Consistently two rums tend to lead the results: Appleton Gold, and Pyrat. These are up against the usual suspects: Flor Canas, bacardis, myers, mt. gays, 10 Cane, babancourts, and most of the other widely available brands...
In my tastings, Pyrat tends to edge Appleton Gold out by a bit but it's twice the price.
I used to travel the caribbean and central / south america fairly frequently and my favorite rum on those trips was from all places... Guatemala. Anyway, I've read several tasting notes on one Guat rum in particular, but it's in the $40's per bottle at the store... Appleton Gold at $15 and Pyrat at about $30 are so good for my tastes that I haven't splurged to try it.
A prior poster mentioned Appleton XO which I also really like but the somewhat less expensive Gold "Special" has edged it out in our blind tastings."