El Dorado 3 Year Old

It looks like an unaged rum and it isn't. Three years in oak at Diamond, then charcoal filtration takes the colour straight back out again — you keep what the cask did to the texture and lose what it did to the appearance. Crystal clear in the bottle, rather more going on than that suggests.

Demerara Distillers is worth knowing about for one reason above all others: it holds the last working wooden stills on earth. The Port Mourant double wooden pot still dates to 1732. The Enmore wooden Coffey still came from a distillery that closed decades ago and was carted across Guyana rather than scrapped. Wood leaks, wood harbours bacteria, wood is a nuisance — and wood is exactly why Demerara rum tastes of something beyond sweetness. Nobody else has this.

The nose is nutty and buttery, with pineapple and a squeeze of citrus behind it. The palate runs sweeter than the pale colour prepares you for: mint, milk chocolate, butterscotch, then a light peppery prickle right at the death. The finish is soft and mellow and doesn't outstay itself. Bottled at 40%.

This is a mixing rum and I'd not pretend otherwise. But it is a mixing rum with actual character, which is rarer than the shelf price implies — most white rum at this money tastes of nothing at all, deliberately.

How to Serve

Make a Daiquiri. 50ml rum, 25ml lime, 15ml sugar syrup, shaken hard and served straight up in a chilled coupe — the buttery, nutty side of this rum gives the drink a body that a neutral white simply cannot. It holds its own in a Mojito. Over ice with soda and a wedge of lime, it is better than it has any business being.

Where to Drink It

American Bar at The Savoy, where a Daiquiri is made properly and without ceremony. The Connaught Bar, if you want the version that costs more and earns it. Bar Lotus for something long and cold when the evening is still young.

Food Pairings

Prawns seared hard in garlic and chilli, eaten with your fingers. The rum's nuttiness sits under the garlic and the lime in a Daiquiri does the work a squeeze of lemon would otherwise do — this is the pairing I'd reach for first. Salt cod fritters run it close.