CoR Enmore Ed. 2 1988

An Enmore-labelled bottling from The Colours of Rum, the Warsaw house known for transparent, additive-free single casks. The pale colour points to a continentally aged, single wooden pot still spirit in the Versailles vein, and the cabinet here hedges toward the reliable character rather than over-asserting a contested marque: this is old-school greenheart-pot Guyana, gentler than the tropical full-proof monsters.

Thirty-three years in ex-bourbon wood, much of it likely in cooler European cellars given the light hue and soft 48% strength, have left an unsweetened rum of cedar, tea and tobacco, leather and dry molasses, with light yellow fruit lifting the finish. The continental ageing keeps it elegant and restrained rather than tannic and brooding, the kind of long-aged Demerara to sip slowly and unpack over an evening rather than to mix.