Sailor Jerry is a perfectly cromulent rum

USA Today

10-02-2025

Welcome back to FTW's Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.
Sailor Jerry always had the look working for it. The rum, established around the turn of the millennium right about when his protégé Ed Hardy became the aesthetic of a decade, seemed cool as hell. There was one of Norman Collins's — Sailor Jerry himself — old hula girl tattoos right on the label. As you drank it, more pinup girls would emerge from the back label, peeking above a brown reservoir of spiced rum.
But rum wasn't really my jam. It was an easy mixer at college parties, but we weren't sniffing anything that came in actual glass bottles at that point. When a work trip to Bermuda to cover sailing introduced me to dark n' stormies (I understand, my life is ridiculous), my go-to for at-home imitators was $12 handles from Costco.
The fates, seeing a life in which I'd never been adorned in anything Ed Hardy, Von Dutch or (grimacing) Affliction, decided I had not escaped the 2000s just yet. The folks at Sailor Jerry sent me a bottle to review. I obliged, because 20 years ago my back didn't hurt all the time, Arrested Development was still on the air (sorta) and my facial hair was all (mostly) the same color.
Take me back, Sailor Jerry.
Over ice: B+
My rum experience is mostly limited to mixed drinks. Basic ones, because that's where rum shines (and not because I'm lazy. Totally not that). But any solid barrel-aged spirit should be smooth and complex enough to work on its own, so let's begin there.
It pours a proper caramel brown. It smells like sweet vanilla and caramel with just enough of a boozy sting at the end to ensure this is not a dessert drink. But that sweetness lingers through each sip. While there's a bit of a medicinal sting at the end, this is a perfectly sippable spirit. You get light vanilla, solid expressions of caramel and a minor burn as it hits the end point at the back of your throat.
That leaves it a bit simple. There's not much to dig for; it's a spiced rum, which makes it a cannonball in a mixed drink and slightly basic on its own. But what it does it does well; it's light for a dark spirit and while I probably won't sip it on its own too often it's still solid as hell for $25 per handle.
With Coke Zero: B+
Not much to say here; it's a rum and Coke, and it's good.
Well, dang, that's not a great review. Let me dig a little deeper. The caramel of the sugar inside melds effortlessly with a sweet soda. The vanilla shines for anyone who grew up pounded flavored colas (or who loses their mind when they see a Coke Freestyle machine in the wild). It's, again, a little basic, but that's what rum and Coke is supposed to be. Utilitarian.
I don't want mixology or subtlety. I want a spirit that enhances my soda and gets me a little drunk. There's some minor, hollow harshness at the end of the sip, but otherwise Sailor Jerry hits that target dead-on.
With Barritt's Ginger Beer: A-
Well, this would have been a dark n' stormy if my dumb brain could remember to buy limes. Instead, it's just ginger and rum, which is still fine on its own. I love a good ginger beer, but tend to stick to the sugar free variants; just this 7.5 ounce can of Barritt's is 119 calories on its own.
That's worth it in small doses; the sugar is rich and leads to a denser, more flavorful and almost bready finish. But, yeah, 12 ounces of that is effectively two hard seltzers of calories even before you add booze.
Anyway, the spice of the ginger makes this an even better fit than Coke. While that was sweet-on-sweet, this adds some balance to the mix in a way that lets the vanilla and spice of the rum stand out even more. The contrast helps it pop, but the two work in harmony — two good drinks intertwined in tribute to something better.
Which, of course, is an overdramatic way to tell you I dropped a shot of Sailor Jerry into my ginger beer. But here we are. That minor rubbing alcohol sting that lingers in the back of each Sailor Jerry sip remains, but ultimately… pretty good.
Would I drink it instead of a Hamm's?
This a pass/fail mechanism where I compare whatever I'm drinking to my baseline cheap beer. That's the standby from the land of sky-blue waters, Hamm's. So the question to answer is: on a typical day, would I drink Sailor Jerry over a cold can of Hamm's?
On it's own, no — but that's not really what Sailor Jerry is for. Give me some ginger beer and a lime and I'm all in.