CDI DDL Port Mourant Still 2010

Compagnie des Indes bottled this 2010 Demerara as a single cask, an 8 Year Old drawn from the Port Mourant still at DDL and left unsweetened at 43%. PM is the heaviest of the Guyanese marques, off the double wooden greenheart pot still, but at this relatively young age and gentle proof this release shows a leaner, more raw side of the recipe.

The nose is vegetal and fermented with sugarcane and apple, the youth of the spirit clearly on show, and the palate is dry and spicy with young wood and a solvent edge that has not fully settled. The finish stays dry, earthy, spicy and a touch bitter. This is continental aged, so the wood remains light and the spirit keeps its sharper, fresher character rather than the dark, oily weight of an old PM. It is an honest, no-frills single cask that captures the marque young and undressed, more a study in raw Port Mourant than a polished sipper, best given air to open up.