Zacapa 23 (soon to be supplanted by Zaphra 21) is yet another of the Rum World (an island located near Water World) based myths. The usual hype is that the "23" (which used to be featured as "23 anos") refers to the "oldest rum in the bottle". The Preacher is no exception:
Richard Seale finds this laughable. So do I. Here's why:Preacher: "The Zacapa label has been called a few things by more than a few people. The number 23 has always referred to the oldest rum in the blend. The rum is a blend of rums aged from 6 to 23 years in various barrels."
Zacapa uses a modified solera system of approximately 5 levels to produce their "15", "23" and "XO". New product enters the system and an "Original Reserve" is kept and added to the "solera" at various levels. However, a number of the levels feed back into the OR. If you ever saw the flowchart of all this, it looks more like one of Glen Beck's chalkboard ravings that attempts to promote yet another crackpot conspiracy theory.
Not to mention that the original OR continues to age. And as far as solera is concerned, this futzed up arrangement is more a blending (and reblending) system.
It's not like Zacapa has a separate system producing 23 year old rum.
Bottom line:
1. The "Original Reserve", even if a bit of once actually was 23 years old (which I doubt), it is years older now. Based on the Preacher's claim, by now we should be calling it say, Zacapa 34. But the marketing department wouldn't like that.
2. Interestingly enough, Zacapa 15, Zacapa 23 and Zacapa XO all come out of the same old original reserve, and add to same old original reserve. Make sense to you? Zacapa - and the Preacher - think it does.
Let's get real. Zacapa changed the bottle label from "23 anos" to just "23. This does double duty. First, it continues the myth for the sycophantic Shillery crowd. And second, it's a great - but very subtle - CYA for this fact:
That "23 years" is simply unsupportable.
