Enmore El Dorado Sauternes Special Cask Finish 2003

A special cask El Dorado bottled by DDL itself, drawn from the Enmore distillery's wooden Coffey still, the only operating wooden continuous still left in the world. Enmore's signature is the more elegant, cedar-and-pencil end of the heritage-still range, and here it is given a Sauternes finish, an unusual pairing that brings sweet-wine fruit to a rum that stays genuinely dry rather than dosed.

Matured from molasses and finished in Sauternes wood at a hefty 62.3%, it sets Enmore's heavy oak, leather and faint ash against dried fruit, plum and dark chocolate, with grapes, orange and a herbal lift running through the finish. The fruit comes from the cask, not added sugar, so the rum reads as a robust, focused sipper rather than a soft one. One for experienced palates willing to take it slowly, ideally with a little water.