I distinctly remember the vague unease I felt, when I first laid eyes on the marketing for Ten to One Rum back in 2019. My immediate impression is that the bottles were quite clean, striking and attractive … but maybe just a little bit too slick. My eyebrows went up at the sight of the company marketing what it had labeled as simply a “dark rum,” a fraught term with no concrete or useful definition in the U.S., which unfortunately can lead to misleading labeling. The fact that the brand was credited to a guy who was “formerly Starbucks’ youngest VP” likewise hardly seemed to promise a focus on tradition or quality. My defenses went up immediately.
And then I tasted the products, and proclaimed myself more or less wrong about all of it. The marketing may be swinging for more of a center cut segment of the potential customer demographic, but there’s nothing at all wrong with Ten to One’s formulations, nor their Trinidadian-born owner Marc Farrell. These people are serious about the rum blends they’re putting into these bottles, and they’re producing some of the best mid-priced blends regularly available in the U.S. market today. In particular, Ten to One White Rum quickly became one of my favorite all-around daiquiri rums, a role where it absolutely excels. It’s honestly hard to to better for a classic daiquiri than this rum.
As for extensions to the lineup, however, Ten to One has been pretty quiet since 2019, with just the occasional special release in addition to its flagship White Rum and Dark Rum. That era has now come to an end, with the introduction of a new extra-aged blend, Five Origin Select. This is a permanent line extension, albeit one that will be available in limited quantities year round. It comes with the higher expected MSRP of $65, a modest bump from the $45 of the Dark Rum and $33 for the White Rum.
As the name would imply, this is a blend from five rum markets of the Caribbean–Trinidad, Barbados, Guyana, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. The company points out its highlight of the blend is “11-15 year old Guyanese (demerara) rum distilled on the famed Port Mourant Double Wooden Pot Still,” which to rum fans obviously means a product of the sole Guyanese distiller, Diamond Distillery. Unfortunately, Ten to One doesn’t offer more detail or average age ranges for rums from the other ports, but it seems safe to assume this is likely a blend of younger and older distillates with an average age significantly higher than found in Ten to One Dark Rum, which is also a blend from four of the same ports, excluding Guyana. It’s clear that the intention here is more toward crafting a rum blend for neat drinking, with the increased complexity this implies. It’s bottled at a modestly elevated 46% ABV (92 proof), a nice level for a flavor-forward sipper.
So with that said, let’s get to tasting this new Ten to One Five Origin Select blend.
On the nose, this rum deftly toes a line between subtly composed and rich. I’m getting nutty cocoa nibs and pear fruit, combined with dark stone fruit (like plum jelly), molasses cakes and flashes of fresher, grassy sugar cane. There are also dried fruit elements and a creeping caramelized sugar (with a little vanilla bean) that suggests creme brulee.
On the palate, I’m getting gingerbread in spades, with dark brown sugar and lots of allspice as well. The dried fruit shows up again pretty strongly here, with raisin and prune, buoyed by brighter orange citrus and dulce de leche, along with baked apple. There’s a distinctly peppery lingering spiciness to the finish, and some aromatic oak. I can’t claim to be a great expert in Guyanese rum character specifically, but it seems lighter to me on the distinct Guyanese character than I might have expected, though I do attribute some of its distinctly spicy woodiness to the demerara spirit. All in all, the impression is more of balance than favoring any of its regions too strongly, and it’s easy to appreciate that.
All told, this is a very nice little blend from Ten to One, one that gets across its pan-Caribbean idea very well. It’s more than ready for neat drinking or classic cocktails, whatever mood strikes you.
Distillery: Ten to One
Region: Caribbean
Style: Blended rum
ABV: 46% (92 proof)
Availability: 750 ml bottles, $65 MSRP
Jim Vorel is a Paste staff writer and resident beer and liquor geek. You can follow him on Twitter for more drink writing.