Bristol Enmore Finest Demerara Rum 1988

An Enmore 1988 from Bristol Classic Rum, the English house that has specialised in closed and heritage-distillery rum for three decades. It comes off the Enmore distillery's wooden Coffey still, the last operating wooden continuous still in the world, and at 30 years it shows the deep, brooding side of that normally more elegant still.

Maturated from molasses in ex-bourbon wood at 46.5%, it noses on raisin, plum, tobacco and oak, then turns leathery, dried-fruited and woody with real intensity, the finish carrying leather, oak, roasted notes and spice. It comes across thick, dark and musty with a sherried impression and a peach-iced-tea note. Unsweetened in the bottler's mostly purist style, it is a chewy, tannic old Demerara to sip slowly rather than rush, the long oak ageing front and centre. One for drinkers who like their Enmore dark, dry and well into its years.