Tuesday 27 November 2012

Rum Discovery #3

El Dorado Rum 21 Year Old (43% abv)
Guyana Demerara Rum
Circa £75.00 70cl

El Dorado Rum
Our finale dram of our short vertical tasting and the 21 Year Old. This glorious, full-bodied rum of exquisite taste and character was launched in late 2002 and has quickly established itself as one of the finest on the market. 

“A monumental aged rum that is one of the world’s greatest rum drinking experiences”

That is how the Beverage Tasting Institute of Chicago summed up their appreciation of El Dorado 21 Year Old Special Reserve. 

Luxury sipping for true rum connoisseurs its warm subtlety is best savoured slowly on its own – and shared with a few very special friends, ideal for partnering with cigars. 

I'm not a cigar smoker, though thinking about getting a pipe!

Made from rums of between 21 and 25 years of age, matured in 45 gallon oak casks, within six degrees of the equator in Guyana. 

The superb colour and character of this exquisite rum is the creation of El Dorado's Master Blender. His special recipe blends specially selected rums, oak aged for at least 21 years, from the Enmore wooden Coffey still, the Versailles single wooden pot still and the Albion Savalle still.

El Dorado 21 was awarded a Gold at the International Rum Festival 2003 in Canada and a Silver at the 2003 International Wine and Spirit Competition in London. Most remarkably, this was the highest scoring rum ever to be tasted by the Beverage Tasting Institute in Chicago scoring 98/100 and was awarded a International Wine and Spirits Council Gold Medal this year.

So What Did We Think?

Kat Says: Out of the three, I found this is the spiciest on the nose. The butter cream is present with the addition of an oak character, same as the 15 Year Old, it's full bodied and rich. 

On the initial sip, the spices are very lively, however this does mellow out at the end to reveal bitter cocoa qualities found in dark chocolates. For me I would have liked the dark chocolate notes to last a bit longer as it was only there for a few seconds. 

I didn't find much difference in the finish of this one compared with the 15 Year Old, both are very similar. My favourite out of the three has to be the 12 Year Old as I liked the fresh lightness it has, this 21 Year Old would be a close second as I liked the oak characters in this rum that the others didn't have.

Dave Says: In complete contrast to Kat, this became my instant favourite from first nosing.  There are bags of vanilla initially before the dark sweet coffee and tobacco notes come through leading through to hot spices and teak wood notes and that orange zest is there too, like sitting in a tropical wood panelled drawing room, very colonial, teak wood furniture, spicy cloves and oranges, could almost hear the forest insects in the background.

On the palate it's just as dark and rich and so very smooth; toffee and sweet dark coffee and rich spices, with a espresso bitterness at the end. The finish is long and lingering sweet and at last I noticed the chocolate notes along with a nuttiness and more spices

A fabulous end to my Sunday afternoon tasting three great sipping rums. All three are rums for sitting back, gently sipping and savouring each and every mouth full while contemplating life in general - please don't hurry these rums. Now what sort of pipe should I be looking for?

Many thanks to El Dorado Rum for supplying the tasting sample

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