“When in Rome…” the saying goes, one should always partake in the local traditions. If you’re visiting Spain, indulge with tapas, Greece? gyros and moussaka, The Caribbean….you might imagine jerk sauce and fish, but than you would be overlooking the taste of the Golden Original Tortuga rum cake.

Now if you’ve visited anywhere in the Caribbean, or have taken a cruise in the past decade, you’ve probably come across the Tortuga rum cake. Your initial thought (like mine) might be that it’s a cheap, tourist-driven, inedible cardboard cake — but truth be told, it’s nothing of the sort. The cake, referring to the Golden Original variety, is moist, banana and rum flavored and small enough to not make you feel guilty about indulging (0f course there are both large and small varieties).Tortuga Rum Cake

The real flavor of the cake comes from the premium, five-year old, oak barrel aged Tortuga gold rum (not available to the public). A brief history of the company will tell you that the rum itself is the flagship of the Tortuga Rum company, founded in 1987. The rum, although referred to as Cayman Island rum, is actually a blend of Jamaican and Barbados rum, and the name Tortuga was derived from the original name for the Cayman Islands “Las Tortugas” meaning “The Turtles”.

There are 10 varieties of Tortuga rum cakes, each containing a plethora of ingredients (some you can pronounce, and others you might not be able to) and available in three sizes: 33-oz, 16-oz and 4-oz. Indulge in a unique flavor that might help to remind you of your vacation in the sun, and for the quickest way to purchase a Tortuga cake, visit our Bite of the Best shop.

– eric