Rum Discovery #1

El Dorado Rum 12 Year Old (40% abv)
Guyanna Demerara Rum
Circa £35.00 70cl

Rum discoveries? Where is this journey taking us? I hear you cry. Well after a summer of Tequila why not?

We also were fortunate to meet El Dorado brand ambassador Stephanie Holt at the recent Midlands Whisky Festival where we were persuaded to try the El Dorado 15 Year Old, So technically speaking this isn't the first rum, but for all intensive purposes of this journey, blog and vertical tasting this is now our Rum Discovery #1.

I used to drink a fair drop of it out in the Far East with a bunch of Australians I worked with. We'd often have a 'Bundy Frenzy' drinking vast quantities of Bundaberg on ice and with coke. Hardly sophisticated, and so will not be counting any of my earlier encounters, most of which I would struggle to remember anyway.

So this 12 Year Old is said to be the epitome of Demerara Rum, the true spirit of Guyana, and has been awarded the gold medal at the Caribbean Rum Taste Test (held annually in London) no fewer than seven times in the first ten years in which the competition was held!

The El Dorado 12 year old is a blend of specially selected aged rums, aged in American oak, the youngest being no less than 12 years old, it is a combination of the Enmore and Diamond Coffey stills and the Port Mourant double wooden pot still, blended to perfection and aged in old bourbon oak casks. 

This rum is designed for sipping. The 'blurb' we've received tell us that the spirit was distilled using the double wooden pot still that was built in 1732 for the British Navy - which is pretty impressive in itself!

So What Did We Think?

Kat Says: Sipping rum is a first for me. Like most people I've had my share of rum & coke and if it’s straight, it will be in shots that I've knocked back with some friends in various drinking games. 

All of the different rums I've had before, I can count on one hand…..Bacardi, Old Navy, Sailor Jerry, Bundaberg, and the odd supermarket own brand rums. This is of course before I 'd gotten into whisky and learned to sip rather than guzzle it down to give me 'Dutch courage' so I can party like its 1969!

I found the aromas to be the full bodied characters of dark molasses but without the heaviness. The aroma is very light with a fresh feel with warming spices and a hint of lemon zest. 

Now for the taste, my initial thoughts were ‘Yep this tastes like rum’ then I thought that this description isn't going to be useful for anyone reading this blog so I turned the TV off as it was distracting. It was Sunday night and Homelands was about to start which needed my full attention as well so I opted to watch it on the +1 channel. 

Compared with whisky it is a lot sweeter. Not surprising as this is a Demerara rum and you can taste the Demerara sugar flavours easily. It’s a lovely smooth feel with the spices providing that warm tingling feel. 

For the finish the lemon zest that I picked up on the nose comes through just as the liquid is swallowed, then the tasted of fresh sugar cane juice comes through which lingers giving it a long mellow finish. If you have never had fresh sugar cane juice, it’s a bit like the taste of Demerara sugar but lighter and fresh with a hint of a floral character, and a hit of woody character which comes from the fibres in the stalks.

Dave Says: Heady Demerara sugar on the nose, with caramelised banana, sweet toffee and vanilla, orange zest and a little spicy oak too - it was mouth-watering just nosing it. On the palate it was rich and smooth with sweet honey and spices, whole cloves pushed into a fresh orange.

The finish goes on, sweet and dry with the light spices and orange zest dancing on the tongue, a great start to a Saturday evening's vertical tasting of three aged rums from El Dorado.

Many thanks to El Dorado Rum for supplying the tasting sample