Types of Molasses Rums

I always had some problems to explain the diverse categories of rum - as there are a lot of overlappings.
Until today... I had a training and I was just drawing intuitively the illustration above on the white board [ok it didn't looked so good - my handwriting is definitely not that nice].

And it seemed pretty solid!

It is pretty easy to understand:

Light Rums [I did here something quite controversial - I put both white and golden rum together in one category. Why? Because these rums are very similar - even the age is similar - the only difference is, that white rum is filtered through active carbon after the aging - sure if you compare one white and one golden rum from one company, you might experience, that golden rum is slightly longer aged - however if you are comparing two rums from different companies, a white rum from one company {and country} can even be older then a gold rum from another...]

the two subcategories are:

White rum [or blanco, platino etc]
Golden rum [e.g. oro]

Variations:

standard white rum
standard golden rum
white flavored rum
golden flavored rum
golden spiced rum
white overproof

Dark Rums [Dark rums are aged in manipulated barrels - heavily charred as well as steamed - but they are usually aged as long as light rums. Usually the producer adding some molasses. Even a tiny quantity of molasses is changing these rums to very dark. Often people think, that these rums are precious and long aged, but this is a wrong preconception].

Variations:

standard dark rum
spiced dark rum
flavored dark rum
overproof dark rum

Aged or Añejo Rums [there is no distinguishable line between golden rums and añejo rums - however I would draw it imaginary at around 5 years of classic oak barrel aging].

Variations

standard aged rum
spiced aged rum
barrel proof aged rum

Comments

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