Guyana Archives - First Pour Cocktails

El Dorado 5

Posted on January 13, 2023January 4, 2023 by Nick

We love El Dorado 3, it remains our go to lightly aged rum for making drinks. We’ve also gushed about their 12 as well. In between these offerings are two very reasonably priced offerings, El Dorado 5 and El Dorado 8. Aged at least 5 years, this rum promises to offer darker sugar notes in addition to some of the tropical fruit we love. So is it worth it?

El Dorado 5

Sight: A pleasant caramelly deep copper.

Smell: Caramel and brown sugar mix with light wood and a touch of funk. Tropical fruit and caramelized banana joins in and a hint of ethanol burn pops in and out. A good mix of spice and pepper comes through.

Sip: The body is light but swims with ester soaked wood and caramel right out of the gate. That lightly funky wood note is joined by a green plantain and plenty of caramel and oak spices. There’s a slight dryness here that shows off some of the tropical fruit flavors in a bit of a spotlight, and the boozy notes give a bit of roughness.

Savor: The finish leans into the cask flavors, with more tannin, dried charred burnt brown sugar, and a bit of tropical fruitiness.

El Dorado 5 is fine as sipping goes, with a drier character than the nose would imply. The lightness of the body keeps it from becoming overbearing, but also harms it from establishing any sort of complexity or return value. At a price point in the low $20’s this isn’t unexpected, and shouldn’t be your target application for this rum.

In Cocktails

In a daiquiri the El Dorado 5 works a perfect foil against the lime, exploding with sweet caramelized tropical fruits and touches of honeyed notes. The brown sugar really explodes giving a balanced sweetness against the lime. While it still isn’t the most exciting daiquiri, it’s sweet and delicious.

In Review- El Dorado 5

El Dorado 5 is a simple and straightforward aged rum. At a price point in the low $20 range, it works great for workhorse duty in cocktails. While using it, it doesn’t really include a lot of complexity. For that reason, this isn’t a stand alone in your bar, but rather an addition. For that reason, consider pairing it with an Appleton Estate Reserve or Doorly X.O. to get the full effect of rum complexity.

El Dorado 3

Posted on March 19, 2020 by Nick

A couple years ago, I bought Ann Marie a copy of Smuggler’s Cove Tiki* cocktail manual. The result of this was two fold. First, it energized Ann Marie to branch out into a whole new area, and one that she arguably ended up being quite passionate about – Tiki drinks. The second result was the exponential growth of our rum collection, swelling from 2 – 4 bottles to over 20. Even with all those rums, we still find there to be something special about El Dorado 3.

El Dorado 3

We didn’t originally pick up a bottle of El Dorado 3 (we actually ended up with the 8), but we ended up being curious enough about their line up that we also ended up tasting not only the 8, but the 3, 5, and 12. As previously mentioned in our review of El Dorado 12, Demerara Distilling Limited (DDL) is home to some of the oldest operating stills in the world. While demerara and Guyana rums are known for the caramel (something that Matt Pietrek of Cocktail Wonk dug into with Sharon Sue-Hang of DDL), you won’t see any of that here thanks to the charcoal filtering process. Techniques like charcoal filtering, and their use of wooden stills, demonstrate the experience that DDL has. Experience that shows through in their rums, like their youngest, El Dorado 3.

Sight: Clear – thanks to charcoal filtering

Smell: Vanilla and powdered sugar with hints of banana and cotton candy are layered over by an ethanol layer. The nose is sugary, with hints of nougat and a little nuttiness.

Sip: The mouthfeel is moderate and there’s a fun salted caramel like note that quickly vanishes into large quantities of raw sugar and nougat. There’s a sweetness as well. A touch of banana and macaroon hides there as well.

Savor: The ending has a touch of rum funk and cotton candy with hints of nuts. Finish has a moderate length.

El Dorado 3 is our go to lightly aged rum thanks to it’s very well balanced character and playful flavors. The vanilla and caramel notes provide strong backbones for everything ranging from eloquent daiquiri’s to imaginative and elaborate Tiki drinks. In fact, our biggest regret regarding El Dorado 3 is that it isn’t more readily available everywhere.

If you are going to stock a lightly aged rum in your bar, El Dorado 3 is our top recommendation. For more recommendations, and to see other bottles for starting your home bar, check out our Beginner Home Bar Bottles list.

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El Dorado 12

Posted on August 8, 2019August 7, 2019 by Nick

On El Dorado’s website, they have a reference to their use of wood in the process of aging. It reads, “We are patient. Very patient.”. Sometimes it’s hard to remember when you consume a spirit that it takes a long time to get from agricultural raw material to final production bottle. If you’re wondering just how long 12 years ago was, consider the mortgage bubble was going ‘pop’, we were saying good-bye to Harry Potter in the Deathly Hallows, and T-Pain was gonna Buy U a Drank. I can’t say Shawty was sippin on El Dorado 12, but maybe she should be now.

El Dorado 12 sits firmly at the bottom of El Dorado’s Luxury Cask Aged series. Starting at 12 years, these rums are getting firmly in the aged categorization from Smuggler’s Cove* and range up to 21 years. As is the usual, the age statement refers to the minimum aging of a rum used in the bottling.

Bases in rum matter a lot, and El Dorado 12 is no exception. Known as a demerara rum, it’s made from turbinado sugar. This starting point gives it its sugar in the raw characteristic, and less of the grassy notes in a sugarcane based rum. This rum is also from Guyana via Demerara Distillers Limited who are fortunate to have some of the oldest functioning stills on the planet. In operation since the 1800’s, Demerara Distillers Limited operators both Coffey and Pot stills, as well as heritage column stills.

El Dorado 12 – On It’s Own

Once you open El Dorado 12 you get beautiful notes of sweet brown sugar, maple syrup, and molasses laced with baked fruit and spice. On the palate, it’s relatively smooth and easy to sip. Flavors of vanilla, caramel, and spice are complimented by a subtle sweetness. The finish is a nice balance of nuttiness, caramel, and oak.

In Cocktails

As El Dorado 12 was one of the three rums we tried in Florida, we didn’t have extensive time to play with it. The cocktails we did make benefited from the caramel and vanilla sweetness, while also getting a charge of the spice and some of dried fruit notes. In most cocktails, El Dorado 12 is very nice, but benefits from a helping hand from another rum for complexity.

The Final Word: El Dorado 12

El Dorado 12 is pegged as a Luxury Cask Aged series entry point – and in a lot of ways it reminds of me of a luxury entry point. Similar to an entry level luxury car, there’s a classy exterior to the bottle to make your friends curious. The contents inside are equally refined, and a pleasant way to pass the time – but not so much to ruin the experience of any other car (or rum) for you forever. Overall, El Dorado 12 is a delightful sipping rum that you won’t feel terribly about adding to a cocktail.

Other’s Swig A Dram of El Dorado 12:

Raw Tasting Notes

Nick: A moderately spicy nose floats up hints of tobacco and molassess. Caramel and dark brown sugar with a hint of vanilla join. A hint of baked or preserved fruit (like a date) joins in. The start is smooth, with small pricks of heat as it sits. Bright fresh vanilla cream and caramel are the fore palate, melding into dates, raisins, and light brown sugar. The ending contains a hint of oak, a slight caramel like flavor, and a mild nuttiness.

Ann Marie: Nose: Light brown sugar with notes of maple syrup and freshly ground spices. Taste: Vanilla extract with molasses and slight cinnamon spice. Flavors linger on your palate for quite some time gradually getting deeper into an oak barrel/port cask sensation. Easy to sip on its own or can easily blend well with other rums to add some spicy/oak flavors.

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