Enmore ELCR 1995 Velier 16 Year Old

Description

This is a 16-year-old Demerara rum, aged in the tropics. It was bottled from eight barrels distilled at Enmore in 1995 and bottled in February 2011. The general consensus is that the Enmore distillery closed in 1994, however this label claims to contain rums from the “latest distillation at Enmore Plantation”, suggesting a few last batches may still have run early that year. To add to the confusion, it is unclear what the ELCR mark on the barrels refers to. The reference to this being a rum pot still is likely to be an error, and this was most likely distilled on the traditional Enmore still.

The Enmore Sugar Estate was founded by Edward Henry Porter in the early 19th century after he inherited and converted his father’s cotton plantation on the east bank of the Demerara River. Once one of many in the area, when the Guyanese government began nationalizing and consolidating the country’s rum production in 1974, it was one of only four left. The traditional Enmore still was the historic two-column wooden still, built in 1880. Modeled almost exactly after the first continuo still patented by Aeneas Coffey in 1832, it is constructed of Greenheart wood, originally from Guyana and is mainly used in construction of boats for its ability to stay strong while constantly wet. Wood is also suitable for distilling and removing the spirit of sulfites in the same way as copper. Enmore also received a unique wooden still when the Versailles distillery closed in 1978. When Enmore closed in 1994, both were relocated to Uitvlugt and are now in operation as “Heritage Stills” in Diamond, the last remaining rum producer in the country.