Comment by 3am | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 3am | Hacker News Reader

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Well, as someone that drinks both, there's also a lot in common. Obviously the peating & the resulting tie to the terroir is a little less important, but there are Solera process rums that are top tier spirits for 10-20% of the cost corresponding quality single malt scotches.

Obviously a scotch drinker is going to want to stick to scotch, but there are very fine examples of other distilled beverages (rum, cognac/armanac, bourbon, anejo tequila/mescal) that are going to be as complicated on the palate for fractions of the price. At some point people will switch. The reason I haven't, honestly, is that there are still "bargains" in middle market scotch... it's not clear that intrinsic quality is driving market, as opposed to scarcity or marketing.

EDIT: sorry, got back to this thread a bit late. I echo the other commenter on the Ron Zacapa 23 or Centennario. That was specifically what I had in mind, and is a great launching point for exploring them. https://www.masterofmalt.com/samples/ will let you get 30ml samples for a modest markup and is a great way to try a lot w/o ruining your finances or liver. Astonishingly high end single malts available that way, too (I have no incentive to promote them whatsoever)

I'll have to hunt down a Solera-process rum then. Can you recommend a particular brand?

As for cognac, bourbon and tequila, I can definitely see your point there.

Ron Zacapa Solera 23 is probably the most common and certainly the one I see 'in the wild' the most often. It's a mega-corp rum (Diageo) and bit looked down upon by many rum snobs, but it's pretty good and a decent enough place to start in my opinion, and you shouldn't have much trouble finding a pub with a bottle behind the bar if you just want a taste rather than buying a whole bottle.

I quite like the Ron Zacapa but someone coming from the whiskey world should know that the 23 refers to the oldest rum in the blend and not the youngest like you find in most whiskey. They are quite upfront about this on their labelling, but it did take away some of the "how did this price descrepency happen?" for me.

Very true, just to muddy the waters further however bear in mind that maturation generally happens at a faster pace in hotter climates which rum producing countries generally are.

This might just be the booze snob in me talking, but I think Ron Zacapa 23 was significantly better up to about 5 years or so ago. It's still good, but I think increased demand/production has resulted in an inferior product compared to what it used to be.

Try Dictador 12. Shouldn't be too expensive and is widely considered to be excellent.

Try the Santa Teresa 1796. Highly recommended and still my favorite after many years. I'm biased though, since it's Venezuelan (and I am too).

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