Tanduay Rum, or as they like to style themselves “the Best Rum in the world,” is the best selling rum in the Philippines, but alas, not the world.
Not being the best rum in the world, nor even the best selling in the world has not stopped Tanduay from claiming they are the best (you will see signs everywhere saying Tanguay the best rum in the world).
We decided to explore the Tanduay story and see just how much of it was Trumpesque fake news!
So, the Philippines, much like many cool countries in the Americas, was formerly a colony of the Spanish, in fact, one of the last Spanish colonies, until they took a spanking the 1898 Spanish – American War, after which the Yankees became colonial overlords.
Now aside from killing most of the natives, the Spanish were also good at making rum. In almost every former Spanish colony, they make decent rum, with Cuba, in my humble opinion creating the actual best rum in the world Havana Club.
Now, whilst the war set Cuba off on a great rum-making odyssey, the Philippines instead invented Tanduay.
Tanduay was established in 1856, originally specializing in making aquadiente – firewater, and the rather disgusting palm wine. Over time they began to fine-tune their rum-making qualities, and it is their cheap rather golden style of rum that dominates the lives of alcoholics throughout the Philippines. You will literally see Tanduay Rhum everywhere. To give you an idea of the size and popularity of the company in 2017, they became the first Filipino company to sponsor the NBA.
Is Tanduay Rum the best in the world?
like Tanduay a lot, it goes great with coke and gets you drunk. It is though light-years away from being the best rum in the world, and only qualifies as the best in the Philippines because no one else there makes rum. It appears though they did win the award of worlds best rum from some dodgy competition, and thus this is where the claims come from.
Fun fact, they also make a rip-off Smirnoff Ice, called Tanduay Ice, which now comes in numerous sickly sweet flavours.
It’s more fun in the Philippines….
