El Dorado 12 year

   Rum is so much more than a companion to your coke and yes, please please please, hold the spice. While its storied history contains both the glorious and not so glorious (prisons – criminals – pirates – maritime antics) the spirit itself is liquid history the likes of which I am always happy to drink of. Not just a drink of the isles for the isles, so popular was the sweet sippable spirit that the first rum distillery in the British Colonies was built in 1664 on what is now known as Staten Island. Just three years after Boston, MA followed with their own distillery of rumly delights.
But I’m not divining the rumly delights of colonial Americas. Instead, the El Dorado 12 year rum is the liquid history I speak of today and though their headquarters is based in the Netherlands, their heart lies in Guyana. Known as Breitenstein Products from 1860 up until 2003, the former Dutch East Indies company is known now as Demerara Distillers. Being an advocate of old world traditions, Demerara still uses the last and only fully operational wooden Coffey still in the Western world to produce their rums of a truly unique character. Tasty too, if I may add…and I do.
A consistent award winner in national and international spirits contests, bronze silver and gold don’t mean much if disappointment awaits. Thankfully, I am happy to say that the El Dorado line of rums exudes taste, class, sophistication, and yumminess.

Color: deep garnets and Victorian reds deep and burnt. Copper pennies along the sides.

Nose: heat hits in the back. Melted caramel and toffee chocolate truffles. Truffle powder. Caramel syrup. Cinnamon sticks, nutmeg, and paprika in the back. Fuji apples. Candied plums and prunes. Rum soaked oak staves. Raw cooked sugar cane.

Body: medium with a thick mouth-coating presence. Fullest in the middle, lighter along the sides. Sticks to top of the tongue.

Palate: silky smooth, mouth-coating and filling with caramel vanilla maple truffles. Chocolate underneath. Tongue sticky with caramel nougat. Soaked wood barrels – spice and burnt along the edges. Dried plums, Fuji apples, and raisiny sweetness in the middle. Meaty and chewy. Coconut shavings. Candied pineapple chunks. Everything hits heaviest in the middle with spicy woody rummy staves in the back.

Finish: quick and to the point. Dry, spiced, and woody. Caramel and toffee.

I love rum; I really do. And don’t dismiss rum as just another simple pathetic peon mixer for sugary-sweet cola because it is so much more. Aged rum isn’t all the same either – different sugars and different barrels make for so many deliciously decant rums and yes, I’ve got the time. El Dorado is demerara sugar at its finest.

(an original written work by Kristyn Lier. plagiarism is not tolerated)