The Wine Reference🍷 SupportGuyana: Demerara rum
Photo: Dinesh Chandrapal on Unsplash
Named after the Demerara River, Guyana's rum is known for its historic wooden stills, still in use today.
How it's made
Demerara Distillers runs unique wooden pot and Coffey stills, including the Port Mourant double wooden pot still.
Molasses from local cane is fermented and distilled in a mix of column stills and historic wooden stills, including the Port Mourant double pot still, the Versailles single pot still and an old wooden Coffey still. Each still gives a different 'mark' of rum that the blenders can use.
History
Sugar estates along the Demerara, Berbice and Essequibo rivers once ran hundreds of small distilleries, and their rum was shipped to Britain as Demerara rum. Over the 20th century they closed or merged until Demerara Distillers at Diamond became the last one.
Ageing and label terms
Rum is aged in oak, mostly ex-bourbon barrels; the hot climate makes it mature faster than in Europe. El Dorado bottles are labelled by age, such as 8, 12, 15 and 21 years.
Styles
Rich, dark and full-bodied rums with notes of brown sugar, coffee, dried fruit and spice, plus lighter white rums for mixing. Independent bottlers also sell single-still 'marks'.
How to serve and classic cocktails
Older rums are best neat. Younger ones suit a Rum Old Fashioned, a Mai Tai or a Navy Grog; Demerara rum was a large part of the Royal Navy's rum ration.
With food
Pepperpot (Guyana's dark meat stew), black cake, dark chocolate and spiced desserts.
Good to know
Many 'Demerara sugar' and dark navy rums in the UK contain rum from Guyana, even when the label does not say so.
Producers
- El Dorado (Demerara Distillers)
Bottles to try
El Dorado 12 Year Old
Rich Demerara rum: toffee, brown sugar, dried fruit and spice.
Serve: Neat or on ice
El Dorado 15 Year Old
Deep and rich: molasses, coffee, dark chocolate, raisin and oak.
Strength: 43% · Age and cask: 15 years minimum, oak casks
Made by Demerara Distillers, which keeps working historic wooden stills from old Guyanese estates. The 15 Year Old blends rums from several of these stills for a layered, dark Demerara style.
Serve: Neat or with one ice cube
El Dorado 8 Year Old
Brown sugar, caramel, dried fruit and soft oak.
Strength: 40% · Age and cask: 8 years, ex-bourbon casks
Made by Demerara Distillers at Diamond in Guyana, which keeps historic wooden pot and column stills rescued from old sugar estates. A good-value step into the rich Demerara style.
Serve: On ice, with ginger beer, or in a rum Old Fashioned
El Dorado 21 Year Old
Deep and rich: molasses, dark chocolate, coffee, dried fig, leather and spice.
Strength: 43% · Age and cask: 21 years, oak casks
Blended by Demerara Distillers at the Diamond distillery on the Demerara River, which keeps rare wooden pot and column stills from old Guyanese sugar estates. One of the oldest regularly available rums in the El Dorado range.
Serve: Neat, slowly, as an after-dinner sipper
El Dorado 3 Year Old
Clean and light: coconut, vanilla, light citrus and a little sweetness.
Strength: 40% · Age and cask: 3 years in oak, then charcoal filtered
Made by Demerara Distillers at Diamond on the Demerara river. Three years in oak give it body, and charcoal filtering removes the colour to leave a white rum.
Serve: In a Daiquiri or Mojito, or with soda and lime
More rum & cane regions
Explore all spirits in the interactive guide
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