Enmore Distillery in Guyana is an interesting one. With a quite well known brand in El Dorado, they also produce some different distillates, from the range of their setups.

With that I mean that they don’t have a single distilling setup, but three different ones. There is a French Savalle still, with four metal columns, there is a double wooden pot still and there is an EHP Wooden Coffey still. That last one is also made of wood, and is the last working wooden coffey still in the world.

This rum came from that wooden coffey still and that’s a rarity indeed! Especially at this age. The three casks were emptied in 2021, which makes this a 30 year old distillate if we only look at the youngest contents.

Out of these three casks came 503 bottles, of which 251 are bottled with the Alpha label, 252 are bottled with the Omega label.

Let’s see what this € 370 bottle of rum brings us!

Sniff:
The range of aromas coming from the glass is astounding. There’s sugarcane with a hint of treacle. There’s grass, that almost touches on vinegar. After a minute there’s salted caramel with oak, and an almost mezcal-like whiff of smoke.

Sip:
The palate does the same trick, on a backdrop of chilli pepper and succulents. Maybe cactus and agave behind caramel and sugarcane? The 30-odd years in oak bring a fair dryness on top of the spicy heat. There’s a bit more fruit with overripe peaches, star fruit and apricot.

Swallow:
The finish veers off a little bit with a lit more caramel and burnt sugar. Burnt toast and a hot car engine too. Very dark treacle, oak and molasses.

This is a rather activating rum. As in, apart from bitterness, all flavor-groups are represented and every taste bud is triggered. Even though it’s on the sweet side of things, which is fairly common for El Dorado’s products, there is so much going on that it’s a drink you keep coming back to!

At € 370 you get to the rather hard discussion about whether this is expensive or not. Of course, it’s a lot of money, but you’re getting a top shelf rum too, at a high age. I guess that’s the difference between ‘expensive’ and ‘a lot of money’…

Anyway:

91/100

Available at ExcellenceRhum for € 370. Or for € 700 if you want both the Alpha and Omega labels from Jack Tar