Guess it’s that time of the year again, isn’t it? It’s getting colder by the day and the streets are slowly being decorated with colourful lights – yep. Christmas is coming! While I personally prefer hot, sunny days, I would lie if I said I didn’t like the Christmas period, especially when I also get to enjoy the Rum Advent Calendar from Drinks By The Dram.
Drinks By The Dram was born from the idea of being able to try a whisky without having to blow the budget on a whole bottle, so they started doing 30ml samples that would be far more accessible. The company was launched in 2010 by Atom Brands, the same people behind Master of Malt, and in 2012 they began doing advent calendars featuring samples for various spirit categories.
Well this is a rum blog so today I’ll be speaking about their Rum Advent Calendar – in a spoiler-free review as I did for the past couple of years (here and here). As a side note, this year they also launched a Spiced Rum Advent Calendar which makes sense given the popularity of the flavoured rum category, but that’s not for me as I prefer, you know, just rum.
The Rum Advent Calendar contains 24 drams (30ml samples) that are hand-waxed and packed into a sturdy cardboard box – sturdier than last years and more compact. There are rums from at least 10 different countries, without counting the blends, and if you put them all together you’d get a 720ml bottle at 41.1% ABV – although please don’t do that. The value of the full bottles from which the samples are drawn from go anywhere between £25 and £88 with a rough average of £35 overall.
Now here’s a little breakdown in a few categories I found relevant, including how many that I know of are sweetened.
| Molasses Based | Cane Juice Based | Spiced/Flavoured | |
| Unaged | 1 | ||
| Aged | 11 | 1 | 4 |
| Aged & Sweetened | 7 |
As you can see most of the rums are aged molasses based which are split between sweetened and unsweetened, but do not let that make you think they are all the same – as I said, they are sourced from at least 10 different countries plus the blends, so there’s plenty of diversity to tickle anyone’s palate. I do wish there were more cane juice and unaged representatives, but those are quite niche and could be hard to get around them sometimes. One thing I’m extremely happy about is the fact that there are less spiced rums featured – makes sense since they put together the Spiced Rum Advent Calendar.
After looking at the content list, I think this is the best rum advent calendar I’ve had so far from Drinks By The Dram – there are a few drams I haven’t even tried myself and plenty other I’ve had for which I’m excited to try again. Its selection is quite approachable for the average drinker and interesting enough to keep a rum enthusiast like me entertained.
The overall tasting notes would be: cinnamon, toffee, banana, black tea, chocolate, green tea, vanilla, strawberry, red apples, coriander and coconut.
The price of the calendar is £150 and while it might be a tad expensive, it will keep you busy for the whole of December until Christmas and give you (or a friend) the opportunity to explore the category in a fun way.
You can buy the Rum Advent Calendar 2022 from Drinks By The Dram by clicking the button bellow – full disclosure, if you do so through my website, I will get a commission via an affiliate program.
Like every year, I will be posting mini-reviews of the drams daily on my Facebook page when December starts. I encourage you to enjoy the drams as I do and maybe even compare tasting notes.
Cheers!
The idea is great, but the execution (rum selection) is definitely poor – there is literally one sample I’d be very willing to try (the last one in the alphabetical order). Also, 30 ml is a tad too little for my liking. I’ll pass on this one, but I’ll gladly read the tasting notes.
It’s meant for the general consumer rather than hardcore rum heads and from that point of view I think it does it well. Also I get to try a few rums I wouldn’t normally buy a bottle of.