Post #482722 by CincyTikiCraig on Thu, Sep 10, 2009 10:00 PM

I received a rum shipment today from a store that was recommended to me by several fellow TC'ers. The store has REALLY great prices (especially as compared with what we pay in the Ohio/Kentucky area), so I ordered several rums that I can't get here in Cincinnati included a restock of El Dorado 5 Year, which is a staple in my bar. I received the order today, but the ED 5Yr had a different label than what I've bought for the past couple of years. This is what I've been buying:

This is the current label according to the ED website. Here's what I received in my shipment today:

I'm wondering of this could this is an older label? The biggest (and best) surprise was what's in the bottle. While the two products are obviously cut from the same 'mother rum', the 'older label' that I received today had a much deeper, richer colour, flavour and nose than the 'standard' ED5 that I've been buying for years. I did an A/B tasting of the two with my Wife and the difference wasn't subtle at all-in fact the 'old label' tasted very much like the ED 12 year old that I have bought many times before. It's deep and rich enough to sip straight.

Has anyone ever come across this label, and has ED 5Yr changed character in recent years?

Mahalo,

Craig