Guyanese Rum (Demerara Distillers Ltd.; SMWS R2.19 "Rumalicious")

 

The last rum from Guyana I had was also a single cask offering from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society ("SMWS"), which occasionally has other spirits on offer, like gin or rum or rye or Armagnac. 

This is an 18 year old rum, which is easily the oldest I've ever had, from Demerara Distillers Ltd., which continues to use 200+ year old wooden stills to make their rum. It's bottled at 60.9% ABV, which is astonishing for 18 years in the barrel in, presumably, a tropical climate. 

Here are the official notes:

From the last working wooden continuous coffee still first installed in 1880 at the Enmore Estate in Guyana comes this sample. Immediately sweet tropical fruits arrived on the nose neat, soaked in rum (no surprise here!) additionally also with plenty of spices. Sweet and very viscous on the palate but a burning sensation in the throat like when swallowing extra virgin olive oil. Nothing plenty of water and time cannot fix, as nearly always with high-strength rum ‘water is your friend’ and ‘taking your time is not being lazy’. Now we imagined pirate cutlasses with leather scabbards, wooden planks and legs, parrots and, as one panel member phrased it, “satisfying glue and petrol”.

This "second fill" barrel must have been mighty anemic (ha!) because there is virtually no wood influence here at all. I cannot imagine an 18 year whisky with this little cask influence - this is like 99% distillate driven. 

Let's dig right in:

Nose: First, a comment about the official tasting notes: what the hell? Tropical fruit soaked in rum? That's no kind of tasting note at all! "This gin tastes an awful lot like gin." Very non-descriptive, and unusually reticent from the SMWS, who normally delights in wild flights of fancy in their descriptions. 

What I get: bright sweet pineapple, glue, rotten or spoiled mango, new leather, brown sugar, wood polish, hints of rice-and-beans (!!), and a nice back end of baking spices. 

With some water: this gets quite a bit fruitier. Pineapple cocktail, peach, mango (unspoiled!), kiwi, lychee, etc. The second layer gives you glue and turpentine, but faint. It's MUCH funkier neat, and quite sweet and gentle with water. 

Mouthfeel: Super-viscous. They aren't kidding about that "olive oil" bit. 

Palate: Bright young pineapple, old wood, alcohol and hide glue, sour mango, tropical candy, molasses, nail polish remover. It's soft but bright, which is an interesting combination.

With water: Same as above: fruitier, with streaks of turpentine and glue. Still funky, but not wild. I've had far crazier, and actually prefer this neat. 

Finish: Short, lots of alcohol and bright yellow fruit. Jackfruit, kiwi, star fruit, etc. 

Verdict: A lovely, lovely rum that drinks easily despite a very high ABV. I still maintain the best rum comes from Guyana - this is funky, high ester stuff yet also approachable (perhaps the age?) and full of fruit and weird dunder-based stuff. This is a softer and more approachable version of the other wild Guyanese rums I've had - and I love it. Smooth and classy stuff but with a lot of character. Highly recommended.