Virago Rums Review

Virago Spirits make several spirits and have an outstanding range of award-winning rums including one aged in ruby port casks and another in Pedro Ximenez sherry casks.

Virago Rums Range — Three of the Virago Rums
(They also do a 151 High Proof Rum)

I was very curious to try some of these rums from Virago, who are based in Richmond, Virginia. They make a couple of interesting-sounding gins, and a coffee liqueur, but it was the rums that caught my eye the most.

Blending Rums

Their basic rum is a blend of rums from four different countries. I’ve tasted some excellent blended rums lately, and I’ve also visited three of the four countries that the rums come from: Barbados, Jamaica, and Nicaragua, but not yet the fourth port, Panama.

As Virago explains on its website, individual rums tend to be inconsistent as they are mostly small-batch hand-crafted rums which depend on the seasons, with each batch and even each barrel of rum varying slightly. The best way to get consistency in your flavor profile is to blend rums, and to vary the balance in the blending to get the result you’re after.

Four-Port Rum

So Virago’s basic blend, Four-Port Rum is made up of:

An 8-year-old rum from Barbados which is both pot and column distilled
A pot distilled 4-year-old rum from Jamaica
A column distilled 6-year-old rum from Panama (I’ll get there one day!)
A column distilled rum from Nicaragua that’s been aged from 5-8 years

The resulting Four-Ports blend is 43% ABV. The nose is light and creamy, with butterscotch, honey, vanilla, coconut, pineapple, citrus, and peppercorn for spice. The palate is equally smooth, creamy, and warming, with that Caribbean blend of vanilla, tropical fruits, and spiciness. It’s totally delicious and very more-ish, and I’m not surprised it’s won several awards including a Double Gold, Best of Class, and Best of Category from the American Distilling Institute in 2019.

Ruby Port Cask Finished Rum

Not content with producing this tasty basic blend, the folks at Virago have obviously been intent on having some fun and experimenting with ageing the rum in different ways. What would happen, someone must have said, if we age the rum in port barrels for a few months? So they bought some barrels from the beautiful Douro Valley in Portugal (been there!), which had just been emptied of ruby port. Ruby port is one of the sweeter rum styles.

The rum is also watered down slightly, for an ABV of 40%. On the nose there’s cherry, vanilla, honey, spice, and a touch of smokiness edging this towards whiskey territory. The smoke and cherry also come through strongly on the palate, as does the alcohol, even though it isn’t quite as strong as the Four-Ports original. The spiciness and sweet vanilla is still there too. It’s definitely another winner, literally so as it’s also picked up a bunch of awards.

PX Sherry Cask Finished Rum

This was the rum I was most looking forward to trying. I’ve been in love with Pedro Ximenez sherry ever since being introduced to it in a restaurant in Jerez. It was served alongside a dish of vanilla ice cream, so you could both sip it and pour it over the ice cream. I can taste its rich and nutty sweetness even now.

So, said Virago, let’s age our rum in PX sherry casks for a few months, and see what happens. The result is a rum that is more subtle, more complex, and more gentle than the Four-Ports. This one is also 40% ABV. On the nose there’s vanilla, butterscotch, almonds, hazelnuts, and a cinnamon spice about it. These all come through on the palate, delivering what is promised from the nose. There’s also a smooth and nutty finish, with the sweetness of almonds prominent. And yes, this too has won several awards, including an impressive Double Gold in the 2020 San Francisco World Spirits Competition.

If you’re at all interested in rum, do yourself a favor and try any or all of these. Do your own tasting of all three, to discover the results of a little more ageing, in those two different barrels.