DDL El Dorado Grand Special Reserve 1997

This Grand Special Reserve is a single-vintage 1997 release from Demerara Distillers under its El Dorado brand, aged twenty-five years and bottled at 43 percent. El Dorado is DDL's own label, drawing on the Diamond stills, and its bottlings are sweetened to drink rounder and more dessert-like than the dry independents.

Matured in ex-bourbon wood, the long ageing gives a wood-forward nose of chocolate, cocoa and dried fruit, with the palate moving through oak, dried fruit, leather and allspice into a woody, chocolate-and-dried-fruit finish. Some drinkers find the caramel sweetness sits forward of the spirit, which is consistent with the house dosage. Approached honestly as a rich, sweet, after-dinner Demerara rather than a bone-dry sipper, this is a deeply aged El Dorado where decades of wood and added sweetness combine into a dessert-leaning pour.