Name: El Dorado 15 Year Old Special Reserve
Type: Rum
Origin: Guyana
ABV: 40%
Price: $42.99 from Randall’s Wine and Spirits
Changing it up this week, I wanted to share another spirit review with you all. As I have shared in the past, our usual spirit of choice in the house is Laphroaig. About every third bottle or every couple months, we decide to purchase something different. Sometimes it’s an Irish whiskey, other times a rum. About six or seven weeks ago, I bought a bottle of El Dorado 15 Year Old Special Reserve as one of my best friends was on a rum kick. We slowly drank it down but ended up getting busy with music gigs and school functions and it got put off to the side (my wife also decided to increase the inventory of wine in the house, but that is for another day). Looking at my available time this week for a review, the bottle caught the corner of my eye and I realized this would work out great.
El Dorado’s website describes the creation of the 15 Year Old Special as such:
A combination of specially selected aged rums, some as old as 25 years, from the Enmore and Diamond Coffey stills, the Port Mourant double wooden pot still and the Versailles single wooden pot still, it is blended to perfection and aged in old bourbon oak casks.
I love the color of this rum out of the bottle. The nose gave me notes of vanilla, brown sugar and molasses. The flavor profile on the palette gave me vanilla (the strongest out of the group), toffee and brown sugar. It has a shorter, sweeter finish with more vanilla aftertastes. Overall, I would say this particular rum is a little bit more on the sweeter side than others I have had but very pleasant to enjoy. In terms of pairing with a cigar, I preferred a full bodied smoke like a CroMagnon or the recently reviewed HVC Especial Edición 2015 as it helps offset the sweet, vanilla flavors. If you primarily a whiskey drinker, The El Dorado 15 Year Old Special Reserve is a vastly different but pleasant change of pace. While I have no plans to purchase a rum anytime soon, when we do, I can easily see this particular one being brought in the conversation.
Total: 8.5/10
As always, thank you very much for reading and I look forward to the next time I can share my thoughts with you.
