Kraken Rum: Great Bottle Design, Not Great Rum Taste

I am a sucker for product packaging design. That's the only reason I bought a bottle of Kraken Rum, pictured here.

And what a cool looking bottle! A black rum with two built-in finger handles with a picture of a mythically large kraken with an ancient sailing ship in its evil tentacles. How could I NOT purchase it.

I even purchased the bottle knowing that it's a "spiced" rum -- long derided by cocktail snobs like myself. After all, spiced rums are sold to be mixed with cola, and rum-and-coke is a pretty uncreative drink and is one of the few alcoholic concoctions that nearly makes me puke. See, I enjoy the raw taste of straight rum and don't need the manufactured spices to make me enjoy the basic flavor of distilled molasses spirit and whatever woody sugary notes and color picked up from the barrel.

The taste of Kraken Rum is simple to describe: moderately high-proof base spirit with vanilla. Seriously, I could duplicate Kraken Rum simply by buying a cheap bottle of vodka, some black food coloring, and a two ounce bottle of McCormick's vanilla extract bought at Safeway for $7.99.

If you're ever in the mood for vanilla-flavored liquor, have a glass of Kraken on the rocks. Otherwise, stick to real rum. There's not much more to the story than that.