El Dorado "Cuba Libre" bottlings

the bottle of El Dorado 15 year old special reserve i just bought has a "Cuba Libre" label referencing both El Dorado rum and the Cuba Label Restaurant chain.

does anybody know if this rum is different from the standard El Dorado 15 year old rum??

What's interesting is that (at least here in Miami) the liquor stores that carry the ED CL do not carry the regular ED line, and vice versa. Not a one! So that leads me to think they may be the same. If I remember right, the ED CL stuff was a bit more expensive, too.

Just a guess - it's probably similar but not the same. Kinda like Smuggler's Cove has their own house demerara from El Dorado, which is aged 12 years (I think?), but different from the regular El Dorado 12yr. I think Martin from SC went there and blended to his own taste.

I like to go back and read the post about El Dorado on A Mountain of Crushed Ice once in a while for reference. I still don't really understand the whole relationship between El Dorado and DDL, but anyway they have all those old stills - Enmore, Uitvlugt, Port Morant, etc. - and the magic is partly in the blending. That's why you get other blenders like XM Banks, and even Lemon Hart for that matter, who use rums from those stills. (At least I think that's how it works - someone straighten me out if I've got it wrong)

Anyway, maybe the Cuba Libre restaurant rums from El Dorado are the same kind of thing - specially blended rums from those stills. BTW, here's their website, with the Buick on the front page (one of my favorite chrome smiles from that era). If you click around, you can find their listing of the range of Cuba Libre rums, with ages that match the El Dorado line. I have the spiced rum...

-Randy

I've emailed El Dorado twice about this and gotten no response. the silence suggests to me that the rums are the same.

also, i was in a liquor store yesterday that carries other Cuba Libre-labeled bottlings, and i noticed that the Cuba Libre labels have the same extended descriptions on them as the corresponding El Dorado lines...

On 2012-02-17 18:21, aquarj wrote:
I have the spiced rum...

-Randy

how is that, btw? i've avoided all spiced rums except for the Cap'n in my Christmas eggnog.

[ Edited by: thePorpoise 2012-06-21 15:01 ]

They also have a dark rum which isn't too bad. It's still a Demerara and priced quite reasonably. I liken it to Trader Vic's rum - but much better quality.

yesterday I purchased a litre bottle of the Cuba Libre silver rum, and a bottle of El Dorado dark rum (having tried none of the el dorado rums under 5 yrs old before).

re the El Dorado dark-- its funny, i too thought it was like an improved version of the TV rum. it tasted of butter, and also of toasted nut. didnt really taste like a demerara to me though. probably wont buy it again, it's only ok, and i prefer more body in a dark rum.

the Cuba Libre silver, which may or may not be same as El Dorado silver, tasted like an ordinary Spanish-style rum to me. a little disappointing, but a great price nonetheless.

what's really funny-- i asked the clerk whether the Cuba Libre rums were same as the El Dorado bottlings, and he got on his computer and cited aquarj's post above as evidence that they are not the same!