Guyana
This South American nation boasts some intriguing indigenous fermented drinks made from bark or sweet potatoes. But, in the mid-1700s, Dutch colonists established a settlement on a South American river that flows into the Atlantic Ocean and its name would become a byword for high-quality sugar: Demerara (refined sucrose but with a little molasses left in it to keep it brown). And where there is sugar cane, there is rum to be made with any leftover molasses. In the late 1800s, as European demand for sugar dropped, rum distilleries across the region began to close. In Guyana, however, a law was passed which ruled that any unique still type had to be preserved. These stills were moved from one closing distillery to the next until, by 1999, just one remained: Diamond Distillery, now known as Demerara. But, with around a dozen different stills, some pot, some column, some wooden retort and all distinctive even within their type, Guyanese rum can be incredibly diverse in style.
