Samaroli DDL Demerara Rum 1990

Samaroli bottled this Demerara 1990 as a single cask of Demerara Distillers stock, twenty-five years old at the house's preferred 45 percent. Samaroli is a purist Italian bottler whose unsweetened, continentally aged single casks are reduced to a moderate strength that prizes balance and length over raw power.

From molasses distillate, the nose is heavy and aromatic with oak, a rubbery note, vanilla and orange, the palate echoing rubber, apple, orange and vanilla, finishing on woody marzipan, polish and a long warm note. The rubber and polish point to the heavier Demerara stills, with some drinkers reading clear Port Mourant character even at this reduced proof. As a dry, naturally presented single cask it shows its quarter-century in deep oak and a very long finish, an elegant old Guyanese rum in the classic Samaroli mould.