Enmore El Dorado Rare Collection EHP 1996

This El Dorado Rare Collection release is single-still Demerara from the historic Enmore wooden Coffey still, marked EHP, built in 1880 and widely cited as the last operating wooden continuous still on earth. Now housed at Diamond in Guyana, it gives a rum that carries the woody Demerara stamp while staying more elegant than the heavy wooden pot stills, distilled in 1996 and aged twenty-one years.

Maturation was fully tropical, so the Guyanese heat has driven deep oak extraction and a dark, polished profile in its calendar years. The nose opens on caramel, vanilla, orange peel and oak, leading to a rich palate of dark chocolate, dried fruit and toffee with a backbone of greenheart-wood spice. Bottled unsweetened at 57.2%, it is powerful but composed, rewarding time in the glass, a serious Demerara for drinkers who already know the style and want the heritage still speaking clearly.