As part of the celebration of Puerto Rico’s International Rum Festival, Taste of Rum, The Ultimate Awards held its first blind tasting, “2023 Best Caribbean Rum.” The event gathered local and international experts in the industry, who had the “difficult” task of meticulously judging the distillates.
The Puerto Rico Convention Center was the venue chosen by The Ultimate Awards to conduct the tasting. Moreover, Javier Berberena—a veteran in the industry with vast experience running competitions for the WSET in the Caribbean—was in charge of spearheading the event.
The panel of judges consisted of
Joe Cabassa shared his experience, adding a fresh and modern approach to the competition:
“You as a judge should think that the producer or creator of the spirits has put their heart into trying to create the best rum. For them, their rums will have five points. Now, with this in mind, think about whether you would keep it as is or make some changes. Based on the changes you would like to see, you start deducting points. If you are skeptical about a spirit, also give it the opportunity to smell it and taste it with some added drops of water.”
In addition, two special guests joined the panel: Henry Delgado, a Social Media Content Creator & News Photographer, and Shane Conrad, better known as @jetsetconrad a Social Media influencer from Los Angeles. They assisted the judges during the tasting.
Tasting rum is more complex than we might think. The main goal is to build a profile for each sample. In this sense, the panel commended each rum’s unique notes:
The Ultimate Awards is trying to disrupt the traditional spirit competition system. Firstly, it is offering a cost-effective subscription model that allows all spirit brands to compete. Secondly, the system will launch its own rating system using a hybrid of stars and points. Stars range from 1 to 6, which breaks the traditional 5-star system used today. Each spirit obtains a certain number of points equivalent to a grade. Based on the grade obtained, they are awarded a specific type of star.
Here’s how The Ultimate Awards’ grading and rating system looks like:
| Grade | Rating |
| 95 | 6 |
| 85 | 5.5 |
| 75 | 5 |
| 65 | 4.5 |
| 55 | 4 |
| 45 | 3.5 |
| 35 | 3 |
| 25 | 2.5 |
| 15 | 2 |
| 5 | 1 |
| 0 | 0 |
As a highlight, NEAT Glass was the glassware used during the blind tasting.
In this first edition, the judges required that six or more rum brands participated per category. After the evaluation of the samples, here are the results:
The winners won a digital STAR image and a two-year license to use the digital image of the award on their bottles, official websites, and other marketing materials. The Ultimate Awards team feels happy and satisfied with how this first blind tasting turned out, as well as thankful that so many great brands trusted them enough to participate in the competition. The platform is now penciling in what will be its biggest competition later in the fall of 2023.
Congratulations to the 2023 Best Caribbean Rums!
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