Ron Zacapa Solera Centenario 23

This is a very well balanced rum from Zacapa and I like is a lot especially considering the price tag. The nose is heavy with spice and sweetness and a touch of orange zest and chocolate. The palate is well rounded with caramel, honey and chocolate topped of with burnt oak and overripe fruits. It has a long, sweet and fruity finish with burnt oak. I'd say this one is better than the bottling from the late 90s and early 00s that won medals. Price to quality is very good.

Meine zweite Flasche dieses Rums. Die erste Flasche in meinen Anfängen noch bewusst gekauft, war diese hier ein Geschenk. Würzig, leichte Süße, Vanille, Karamell und alkoholische Noten. Mehr Marketing, als Qualität in der Flasche

8:On the nose it initially gives a bouquet of brown sugar, it reminds a little of a chocolate or caramel/toffee sauce for ice cream or desserts, red, tropical fruits, raisins are there, also a feeling for the aged rums in the blend with a little oak and cocoa coming through. 8,5:Upon tasting, the rum is not as sweet as expected. The nosing suggested it could be as sweet as some older El Dorado rums with much more sugar. . The Zacapa 23 is actually not as dry as XO, but it is oaky, buttery, vanillia, a note of coffee expresses itself. The flavour builds if you leave the rum in your mouth for a little longer allowing it to coat the palate. You then get some of the cocoa flavours, caramel and a little bit of tropical fruit, raisins-sherry finish present. 8,5:on the finish the rum is very smooth and has almost none aftertaste or alcohol burn. Red fruits, punchy taste is carrying on, with minimum dryness. It is very pleasant to sip it, no matter what is written about it, this is a tasty and really round rum, few added grams sugar more or less🙂.

Zacapa is a rum I would never buy. And not because it's bad, but for that price I'd rather buy something better (pusser's, black tot...). If I gave it to someone who doesn't drink rum, they would like it. The bottle also looks nice, ideal as a gift (for someone who likes rum once in a while). To me it is a very sweet rum and also only 40% alcohol. I find the smell too artificial and the taste is round, but to me it's like drinking water, very weak. More like a gift than for drinking. 5/10

Der Ron Zacapa 23 war eine Empfehlung und für mich ein Volltreffer. Toller Geruch nach Vanille, Früchten, ein wenig Holz. Der Geschmack mild, weich. Etwas mehr Holz als im Geruch. Er verbleibt länger auf der Zunge. Sehr angenehm. Gesüßt ja, aber nicht zu süß Farbe schön dunkel, leider nachgeholfen mit Zuckerkulör. Mein erster Zacapa aber mit Sicherheit nicht der letzte.

Die Flasche war ein Geschenk. Ich hätte ihn wahrscheinlich nie gekauft. Viel süße, Karamell, Toffee, Schokolade und Kaffee. Insgesamt aber dünn, nicht komplex und etwas künstlich. Habe ihn dann in den Tumbler umgefüllt, etwas Eis und Limettensaft dazu und schon war er ganz ok

Betont gefällig und weithin verbreitet - einer der Rums, den wohl jeder Rumliebhaber bereits einmal im Glas hatte. Mit typischen Rumaromen von Vanille, Karamell und Würze - primär wird das Profil geprägt von dominanter Süsse. Sehr zugänglich, überschaubare Komplexität.

Smells like you would expect from a column still at this dilution and this “age”: honey and syrupy with a little bit of wood and oily orange peel. A single clove present. But all in all, it’s very dessert-like in the sense of chocolate dipped macaroons. Both taste and finish are completely overpowered by the sweetness. It’s a shame the little complexity it had on the nose is lost. No flavours are left but sugar and water. Ultimately making this a fortified 1/1 sugar syrup. This is a decent bottle in mixology, but I would highly discourage sipping this as it’s very artificial tasting, over-diluted and severely lacking complexity.

Very well-known and popular rum and also not quite as sweet as a Diplomatico, but the price-performance ratio is bad with Zacapa. Pleasantly round after caramel, honey, vanilla, and fruit, but some alcohol sharpness with it. In the mouth clearly spicier than the nose suggests. Positive is the roasty aroma in the mouth and finish, which can be associated with coffee.

Back to the roots 😎😝 A long time ago… Back in 2020 this was my start into this wonderful magick world of RUM😎 BTW it’s good for desert and the sweet-rum-lovers. The alcohol is very dominant here! Also the price tag is too high (in my opinion), you can get easily some better rums out there.

Marketing was good with Zacapa, but to suggest it is a 23 year old premium rum I find difficult. The taste is not premium

Caramel and vanilla. Not bitter. Delicious

One of my first meets with the Solera term. An easy sipper, although too sweet for me. In the nose I got caramel and vanilla. The notes gave off caramel and chocolate to me, and also some hints of dried fruits

Probably the maximum of many hotel bars, but suitable for gentlemen's evenings at best as an unspectacular starter. Relatively flat, short and somewhat boring. If it has to be Spanish style at all, I would almost prefer the Cuban Eminente, even if it is supposedly much younger.

This is the rum that started it all. A bottle as a gift from a friend. At first it sat unopened in the cupboard for a long time - I was more preoccupied with my whisky bottles at the time. At some point I opened it to be able to answer the repeated question 'how does it taste': quite nice but nothing compared to Highland Park 18 or Laphroiag 10. Guests and myself were given a glass every now and then until the bottle was almost empty without it being noticed. I then took more time with the last 3-5 cl and lo and behold, an interesting tobacco/smoky note, burnt sugar. Not at all uninteresting! And then, of course, the questions: Is that all rum can do? Are there also cask strength bottlings? Are there flavor monsters like whisky? And the answers: No! Yes! YES! So, thank you Zacapa 23 for pointing out the door to the rum world! And today I've had it in my glass again for a long time. And I confess it's better than I remembered. Sure, it's not cask strength and the Spanish style is generally not my first choice. But the fine spice, chocolate, cask and dried fruit are well balanced and give a very rounded impression. An everybodys darling outside the rum scene. And that is also its greatest weakness: too arbitrary, too pale, too round. It was nice to be able to try it again, but it will be some time before we meet again 😉