Evoking the name of Ernest Hemingway’s boat, Papa’s Pilar Blonde is a blend of rums from Florida, the Caribbean and South America that are solera-aged using ex-bourbon and port wine barrels before being blended, then finished in Spanish brandy barrels.  I picked up a sample of this a while back because it was cheap and the grenade-like full-sized bottles looked cool. I’m glad that I didn’t bother with a larger bottle, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The aroma is full of nuts, milk chocolate and vanilla with a lot of sweetness. The taste is similar, except I’ll change the chocolate to white and specify the nuts as of the macadamia variety. There’s also a peppery bite with a bitter chocolate and nut finish. It’s simple and very un-rum-like, but that’s not the problem. It’s unbalanced and artificial tasting… very artificial tasting. Don’t bother with this one unless you like artificial chocolate and nut flavors with vanilla and pepper.