Kasama Rum is a new brand being produced by Alexandra Dorda – the daughter of Tad Dorda, who co-founded Belvedere and Chopin Vodka in the early ’90s. Now the Filipino-Polish entrepreneur is here to bring a rum featuring both of her cultures to the masses. It’s distilled in the Philippines and bottled in Poland, after spending 7 years in ex-bourbon barrels.

Seven year old rum? What can go wrong. Well, let me explain.

Kasama Rum kicks things off with an ultra-sweet nose of maple syrup and (especially) candied pineapple. There’s no mistaking where this experience is headed just from the aroma alone: sweet and fruit-heavy, to the exclusion of basically everything else. There’s an overload of additional pineapple on the palate, followed by notes of vanilla, cotton candy, and more Sunday morning breakfast syrup notes. The sweetness, with a mountain of crushed pineapple omnipresent, never lets up — at all — leading to a finish that is absolutely dripping with sugar, becoming almost overbearing at times.

The experience is actually manageable in small doses, but after half a glass it quickly becomes too much to handle. I wouldn’t dream of drinking this straight on the regular. Tropical cocktails might be able to handle it in small proportions — a pina colada, perhaps? — but for more elegant libations, Kasama’s a decidedly tough proposition.

80 proof.

C / $29 / kasamarum.com 

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