Angel's Share Title
The Kokomo brand is based in San Diego, California, and co-founded by Mike Love of the Beach Boys and Head of Distillery Operations, Geoff Longenecker. The brand produces a line of ready-to-drink cocktails as well as rums and gins in partnership with their subsidiary company, Seven Cave Spirits. The rums for their barrel-finished blend are sourced from Barbados, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica, and the source distillery either used molasses or Demerara cane sugar to make the component rum. All of the rums in the blend were created using pot stills and were aged in new oak or used white oak Bourbon barrels for a minimum of eight years with a maximum of 12 years. The rum is blended to 46% ABV and bottled for distribution in California. The company does not use any additives or coloring in their products.
Appearance
The artistic label wraps the bottle of the short-necked 750-ml bottle and provides the basic information about the rum in the bottle. Some of the production details are in a hard-to-read script at the bottom of the bottle label, but the rest of the label is quite clear. The black plastic neck wrap secures a wooden-capped synthetic cork to the bottle. The rum has a dark golden amber color in the bottle and lightens slightly in the glass. Swirling the liquid creates a medium band that slowly beads up, releasing a couple of thick, slow-moving legs down the side of the glass. It takes a few minutes for the band to evaporate, leaving behind a ring of beads around the glass.
Nose
The aroma of the rum is sweet vanilla forward, followed by notes of bananas, dried apricots, and cooked pears. As the fruit notes begin to fade, there is a brief hit of lemon zest that helps tamp down the sweetness. Wood spices of cinnamon, nutmeg, and smoky ginger round out the experience.
Palate
The first sip of the rum conditions the palate with a swirl of sweet caramel, slightly chewy smoky wood notes, and alcohol. Additional sips revealed the cooked pears from the aroma, but also banana bread, cinnamon, and smoky wood notes. The lemon zest note returns at the finish, dialing down the sweetness of the spirit and letting the wood notes manifest in a pleasant medium finish.
Review
I am the first to admit that I am drawn to multi-island rum blends and was immediately intrigued when I learned about this product. The eight- to twelve-year age range is certainly a sweet spot when we think of aged rums, and this one has some interesting things going on. First, the biggest surprise was the sweetness of the rum. The company clearly states that they do not use sweeteners and additives, so the strength of the caramelized vanilla sweetness stands out. Second, I enjoyed the aroma and the way the fruit flavors manifested on the palate. The lemon zest note that popped in both the aroma and palate evaluations balanced the spirit in a good way and let the spicy wood notes manifest well into the finish. Overall, I found, because of the sweetness, Kokomo Barrel Finished Rum to be a pleasant after-dinner sipping rum that is at a comparable price to similar rums in the market. Currently available online and on the west coast of the United States, it will be interesting to experience some of the other rums in the product line.
