Booze Reviews: Bacardi Dragon Berry Rum

Flavored rum is nothing new. Vodka has been trying to disguise its tasteless self under layers of sugar and artificial fruit for decades. In fact, flavored vodka has saturated the market so much that brands like Smirnoff are now left with crappy flavors like "Twisted Pear Vodka." (Mmm, pears, I was just dying to put that mushy pear twist on all my favorite girly-drinks.) Anyway, rum makers like Bacardi were watching vodka make all this money off people who like their booze to taste like, well, anything other than booze and decided to get in on the action. Thus we have their newest flavor: Dragon Berry Rum.

If you were to travel to your grocery store right now you'd find approximately 95 million flavors of rum. The only flavor they don't carry is "ass" but I hear that's coming out next fall. I have to give Bacardi some props for not taking the easy way out by just walking around the fruit section and saying "what kind of disgusting fruit flavors haven't we made yet?" (LIKE PEARS! SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE HELL?) Dragon fruit isn't something most people are familiar with, so Bacardi made the wise decision of cutting it with something everyone is familiar with - strawberries. It comes out tasting like strawberry rum with a little something extra in the background that you can't quite place - dragon fruit. Which looks something like this:

The question is: is it worth buying as a standalone rum and does it actually add anything to existing cocktails? As I showed you last week, it can be used to create some fairly tasty beverages and I actually do like Bacardi's suggestion to drink it with ginger ale. But I don't think this is going to be anything cocktail-nerds wet themselves over. It's just too sweet and doesn't play nice enough in classic cocktails. I don't expect this one to become a classic but nobody expected Midori to last this long either.  You'll just have to find out for yourself if strawberry/dragonfruit is a winning combination for your own palet.

Let's be honest, nobody is going to start ordering Dragon Berry straight-up. I think this is just another fun bottle you can pick up for $15.99 and play around with. Try it with ginger ale...see how the night goes...and if you end up with your pants on your head in the morning don't feel too shameful that Dragon Berry stole a piece of your innocence. I certainly don't.

Our Rating:

Out of 5