Rum Style

What is a marque? The word, written in English with a nod to French, refers in Demerara Rum to the mark of origin from a particular still. Each still on an estate produced its own rum, and its letter code went onto the casks: PM for Port Mourant, VSG for Versailles, EHP for Enmore. These codes were originally a working tool for estates and blenders, only later becoming marques prized by connoisseurs.

The first defining style comes from the wooden pot stills. Port Mourant and Versailles produce heavy rum, classed by the specification as having more than 300 grams of congeners per hectolitre of pure alcohol. Tasters describe it as oily, dark and smoky, with notes of tar, liquorice and ripe fruit. It's not a Jamaican rum with its bright fruitiness, but rather comes across as heavy, round and deep.

The second defining style comes from the columns — Enmore's wooden Coffey still and Uitvlugt's Savalle. It is light to medium-bodied, drier and spicier, with less power. Many Guyanese blends are built around it, since it combines well with the heavy marques without overwhelming them.

Navy rum carries a trace of this heritage too. A 1944 Admiralty purchasing list names six Demerara marques, including Port Mourant, for which a surcharge of two pence per gallon was paid. Today's navy blends like Pusser's combine several West Indian rums, with a Guyanese component considered typical. The term Navy Strength colloquially refers to around 57 percent alcohol.

Comparing the neighbours reveals the distinction. Barbados blends pot and column into a smooth, soft style, while Jamaica leans into esters in large quantities. Demerara sits in between yet still has its own signature: wood, smoke, dark fruit, with a hint of tar rarely found elsewhere.