So my friend Kevin called me up last night, just before supper time. “Are you gonna be at home for the next ten minutes?” he says. “I have a tasting we need to do.”
I said, “I have to take my wife to a dinner party, but I’ll call you later.”
“Okay,” he says. “I’m on my way home now. Bring the 1919 when you come.”
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About 7:30 I got over to his house. In a grocery bag I had my camera and my bottle of Angostura 1919, a delightfully smooth amber rum that, sadly, can no longer be purchased in my neck of the woods. (Apparently the Canadian distributor went belly-up shortly after Kevin bought me my bottle of 1919, and so I’ve been rather parsimonious in my rum drinking.)
Kevin had gone to the liquor store with the intent of picking up some boxes, nothing more. But he’d happened upon a bottle of El Dorado rum, and he’d remembered his uncle, telling him that there existed a rum that was at least the equal of Angostura 1919, and it was El Dorado. Kevin’s uncle swore by the 40-year-old El Dorado; what Kevin had discovered in the liquor mart was a rack of bottles of 12-year-old instead.
We set them on the counter and, nerd that I am, I snapped the photo above while Kevin was adding ice to tumblers.
The Verdict
The El Dorado is a bit darker, with a bit more molasses flavour to it. I found it sweeter than 1919, but that’s fine by me; I’ll drink green ginger wine, which my wife finds offensively sweet, so sweet isn’t going to put me off.
Both rums seemed to me equally smooth; I distinctly remember telling Kevin, when he first introduced me to 1919, that it was dangerously smooth, that I couldn’t tell there was even alcohol in my drink. The El Dorado has that same silkiness; it goes down almost too nicely.
In short: Mmmm.
We seem to have discovered a rum to rival 1919, and it’s one that we can actually buy.
Interested in prints of my photos? Let me know, and we can work something out.