I have been holding off on El Dorado for a while, mostly because I wanted a big group photo of all the bottles together: 3, 5, 8, 12, 15, and 21, all together like a nice big family on the beautiful Coney Island beach.

Well, you might have thought the 21 would be the hardest to acquire! But no, that is the first full bottle of ED that I acquired, because shortly into my rum journey, I took a trip to Canada and on the US-CAN border I stopped by duty free and got a whole liter of it for like $85, tax free; it was a crazy good deal.

But that’s not actually the first one I tried. Also early into my rum journey, I was actually given a sample of ED 15 by an employee of El Dorado for free. I don’t know if I really have to do a disclosure, because it was early enough in my journey where my review isn’t that good and I want to do a do-over. Oh, I also have a bottle of ED 12, but little did I know, it was actually one of the old bottles from before they severely cut back on the added sugar, so that might not be good to review since it has changed so much since then.

So for now, I will start with the basics and worry about the rest later. Maybe there will be a family photo on the beach, maybe there won’t be.

Note: I am seeing suggestions that it’s a blend of Enmore Coffey and ICBU (Savalle column still). According to quebecrhum, the Savalle mark is the primary component in the blend.

Review

Smell

There’s a strong smell of vanilla and coconut, and that classic Puerto Rican “rummy” smell like Bacardi. Also, a slight herbal, earthy scent. Pusser’s has a much stronger smell of raisins and prunes, while Hamilton 86 actually has a stronger banana scent.

Taste

Pretty disappointing, actually. Harsher and less demerara flavor. Compared to the other rums here, it’s more like Bacardi because it’s just lighter and has more of the coconut vanilla taste of bacardi.

In a daiquiri, ED5 is a lot less interesting compared to the 8 year old version. There’s just not much rum flavor.

Verdict 5.25/10

El Dorado 5 was a bit of a disappointment. I find myself often disappointed by the rums that sort of straddle between the “mixer” and “sipper” tiers as they tend to have less of the young, crisp, punchy flavor, yet are not smooth and rich like their older counterparts. It could also be that I just so strongly associate the flavor of Port Mourant with Demerara, that a rum without it just doesn’t even taste like a Demerara rum. I was so shocked by how Bacardi-like ED5 tasted that, on a separate day, I tried it with a fresh palate. And do I get some demerara notes with a completely fresh palate? Yes, there’s a bit of earthy, smoky flavor… but it’s still dominated by coconut and vanilla notes that are unmistakably Bacardi for me. It’s pretty column still forward in flavor, and I guess at its price point, it’s competing with Bacardi, in which case, it does beat it in flavor, but not by much. 5.25/10