El Dorado 12 with a smidgen Smith and Cross

[da'rum]

I like the El Dorado range and I am a big fan of Smith and Cross. So I combined the two.

A glass of El Dorado 12 and a dribble or, as the thread title suggests, 'a smidgen' of Smith and Cross. Now before anyone jumps on me and tells me that a smidgen is a dry measurement in this case I have taken license.

So the result,

Excellent! If I were to complain about the ED12 it would be that it is slightly too sweet. The addition of a tiny amount of S&C seems to negate the sweetness a fraction and add or enhances the fruit profile.

An experiment that paid off and will be a regular drop now for me.

Cheers

[Capn Jimbo]

Most excellent...


A grand experiment that even Ralfy would approve. In fact, Ralfy often does this with his single malts and does so by pouring 3 drams, one of each component and one of the blend.

Blending is a real art, and consists of finding balance, for example dry and sweet, sweet and heat and the like. Nicely done, we'll try it, but by a smidgeon do you mean a splash?

Also, we'd love to have you use Ralfy's method and report the differences you found among the three drams...

[da'rum]

Thanks Jimbo,

I will do a side by side dram comparison this evening.

I could probably tell you off the top of my head right now but I may miss an aspect that would be worth noting.

Ps; probably half a splash, perhaps a dribble.

[Capn Jimbo]

Or perhaps a squirt, dash, drip, or drop? Or trickle, dab, spurt, spattering or touch?

[da'rum]

3 Glasses.

1) One glass El Dorado 12
2) One glass Smith and Cross 30 ml with 10 ml water to 40 ish %
3) One glass El Dorado 12 with about 6 ml Smith and Cross (undiluted)

1) El Dorado 12 is a very well made rum I taste vanilla, caramel, mashed banana with a walnut background and a passing whiff of smoke. The thing that is a little 'off' for me is the sweetness, the caramel is slightly too much, it is reminiscent of the caramelised crust of Crème brûlée. That caramel sweetness seems to over shadow the other subtleties of the rum after the first glass.

2) Not much wrong with this rum for my tastes. Fried apricots/peach, brown sugar, mixed nuts, predominantly almond back taste. It's pungent but to me not unpleasantly so and has a rich nose that opens up with addition of water.

3) The two rums blend well with a touch,dribble,splash,trickle,smidgen or 6ml of the more powerful S&C to 30 ml of the ED12. The result being that the pungent stone fruit S&C smothers the caramel of the ED12 although the caramel remains it has its muscles removed. The vanilla sits back a bit and the sweetness is dulled. The banana is also still there but now complimented with the apricot/peach. The nut notes are now harder to pin down as to which nut tastes match to the minds memory of nut tastes. The pungent pot still trait of the S&C is dialled back a bit but still sits there on the edge.

Conclusion; A very nice mix that compliments both rums, I'm not sure if it's perfect but it's definitely an extremely enjoyable dram.

I might try a sprinkle of S&C in the 15 tomorrow or maybe in the Barbancourt 5 star or maybe the ............