I’m not even sure just where you’d get it in Memphis, or even in Tennessee for that matter. Still, the vaccines are flowing, cases of the crud are dropping, and summer is nearing. So here is my boozy travel warning: Don’t buy Kirkland Spiced Rum.
I was in Birmingham on some promotional work and visited an old friend from college. In Alabama, wine in the grocery store is old hat, and liquor sales are dominated by the state ABC (Alcoholic Beverage Control) stores. It was in one of these places where I found this bit of dark magic.
A word of caution — approach all flavored liquors the way you would a friend who once threw up on your shoes: They might never do it again, but you know it’s in the playbook. Using lime-flavored gin does not make the classic G&T one step easier. It makes your cocktails taste like you’re adding a dash of Scope to look clever. Just use the real thing. You aren’t that busy.
I trust that I don’t need to remind readers of the dangers of an ill-advised case of Bud Light Orange, which tastes something like slamming a thin beer without taking the Jolly Rancher out of your mouth. A fine way to ruin both flavors.
Getting back to the spiced rum, the danger lurking inside a bottle of Kirkland (the same people who bring you those 47-packs of T-shirts and athletic socks at Costco) is that good spiced rums actually do exist.
Sailor Jerry is a very good option. Normally, kitschy labels are a red flag, but not here. It’s a great spiced rum at a decent price, and in a bottle that looks like your grandfather might have picked it up on his lively gap-year in Vietnam.
For purists who want their rum from the Caribbean, you can’t go wrong with Cruzan 9. It’s excellent, although I don’t advise going to their distillery in St. Croix — plenty of local color, you understand, but not the sort of operation to put the industrial world at ease.
A lot depends on what you’re using your spiced rum for. Drinking it neat? Cocktail? Appeasing Baron Samedi or some other netherworld haint? If it’s the latter, try Boukman Botanical Rhum, made in Haiti and one of the best around. Although its voodoo properties aren’t verified by the ATF.
Kirkland, on the other hand, is an evil spirit in and of itself. Sure, their “Army Mobilization Size” pack of underwear is a great value, but the delicacies of producing a spiced rum that doesn’t taste — if not unholy, at least unnatural — seems to be beyond them. What wasn’t off-brand was the size of the bottle and its attendant price. To a real skinflint, this is dazzling. As a lifelong tightwad, trust me on this: Walk away.
Perhaps I’ve over-sold it a bit; Kirkland isn’t an evil spirit. Despite all effort to the contrary, this rum lacks the character to attain evil status. It’s like wandering up to a haunted castle in a dark forest only to realize that it’s made of vinyl siding. Drinking Kirkland Spiced Rum is like watching a middle school theater club dramatize something called spiced rum.
It’s just awful.
I wouldn’t even mention the stuff, but soon the wife and I will be scooting down to the Gulf Coast for our annual skin-cancer invitational. After paying the rental on the beach house, you might happen to stop in one of Alabama’s friendly and helpful ABC stores and be hypnotized by the sheer volume and price of Kirkland and find yourself saying: “Brenda, we both know that we’re going to spend the week drinking like deranged Parrot Heads, and here is a bottle of rum that could float the Queen Anne’s Revenge for a fair, reasonable price.”
Free isn’t a reasonable price in this case; and as far as fair goes, quaff this stuff and you deserve whatever you get.