Virginia has draconian liquor laws, which means I have to get interesting bottles shipped from [REDACTED], a site on which I am very prone to judging a book by its cover; every month I'll end up purchasing a bottle of something purely because it looks interesting and I can vaguely imagine it fitting into a couple cocktails down the line.

This time, it was Gosling Old Rum, a perfectly reasonable thing to have. It is a fine bottle that would be nice value at $40 but not worth the $65 I paid for it; a couple artificial notes of vanilla and caramel do little to rescue what is ultimately a pretty thin and two-dimensional bottle of rum. I'll be able to throw it in a lot of things (I like Gosling's for its versatility, not its quality), but I should have just sprung for some O.F.T.D. instead.