We had a full day in 'Bundy' and visited both the Bundaberg Rum Distillery and also the Bundaberg Brewed (soda tasting room).
On the rum tour, we learned about the entire rum creation process at the distillery. The sugarcane used in Bundaberg rum is locally grown and is carried from the farms by train to the distillery factory. The distillery uses the sugar cane to make molasses and had a huge storage area for their molasses; it was a vast room and you knew you were walking near molasses because of the very strong scent. We got to sample some of the raw molasses, it was actually quite tasty! After the full tour, we were able to each try 2 drinks. I tried a chocolate & coffee rum liqueur and a silver rum. The liqueur had a drizzle of sweet cream on top and it was so yummy but also so sweet, it was definitely a dessert drink. Austin tried the top shelf rum and a dark n stormy mixed drink with the classic Bundaberg rum. I thought that I liked rum, but I quickly realized I more so enjoy a little bit of rum in Mojitos and mainly like the lime, sugar, and soda. Tasting the rum straight was too strong for me!
Later in the afternoon, we ventured onto Bundaberg Brewed, they are known for their ginger beer. Ginger beer is not an alcoholic beer, rather it’s ginger soda and actually very delicious. They do make alcoholic versions of it, but I think the nonalcoholic version tastes best.
In their tasting room, we tried 15 different flavors of their sodas. The flavors ranged from tropical ones like passion fruit, guava, mango to more classic sodas like lemon, sarsaparilla (root beer), and ginger beer. You can see all of the flavors in the photo below, they were very colorful! There was even a limited time Christmas ginger beer that had the classic ginger beer base plus some Christmas-tasting spices. There were too many flavors going on for me in the Christmas blend, but it was still fun to try! My favorite was the blood orange soda and the passion fruit soda, they were both so so tasty. After the tasting, we got to hand pick a 6-pack of sodas each to take on the road with us.
Bundaberg Rum Distillery:
From left to right: silver rum with soda, coffee & chocolate liqueur with sweet cream, dark n' stormy, and the top shelf rum on the rocks
Bundaberg Soda tasting:
