Demerara Distillers Ltd. (DDL) is a Guyanese distillery known for the El Dorado Rum brand. It was formed in 1983 as a merger of Guyana Distilleries Limited and Diamond Liquors Limited, and is headquartered in Georgetown, Guyana. It is known for its historic stills, such as the Port Mourant, Versailles, and Enmore stills, using wooden designs that are no longer in operation anywhere else in the world. Besides rum, it is a producer and distributor of gin as well as juices, soft drinks, and Pepsi products.
History
Beginnings and growth The region was originally colonized by the Dutch, who established sugar plantations in the regions of Demerara and Essequibo in the Guianas. At the time, the region contained hundreds of sugar estates, which produced rum from the generated molasses, a byproduct of sugar production. The region was also home to greenheart trees, which were very hard and resistant to rotting even in wet conditions. Combined with the scarcity of metal, this environment made wooden vat stills a popular choice for distillation. In 1803, as part of the Napoleonic Wars, the British invaded Dutch Guiana and the Dutch ceded control over the colonies in 1814. The colonies of Berbice, Demerara, and Essequibo were merged to form British Guiana in 1831, and in 1834, the British Empire abolished slavery, with a transitional "apprenticeship" period lasting until 1838. Rum production became a major industry in British Guiana, with 1.5 million gallons produced in the year following its establishment, and 3.2 million gallons produced in the 1870s, surpassing Jamaica's production and ranking British Guiana the top rum producing colony in the empire, with a significant majority being shipped back to England. As a result of former slaves abandoning plantations and the system only being sustainable with nearly-free labor, more than 340,000 indentured servants were brought from India to British Guiana to fulfill the manual labor needs of the agricultural and rum production industries. These workers also died en masse, were treated cruelly, and uprisings and riots in sugar plantations were frequent.
Decline and consolidation
Around 1880, though perhaps earlier, column stills were introduced to British Guiana. Though their adoption was rapid in some countries for their cheaper, cleaner resulting rum, their adoption was not very fast in British Guiana, as some British officials considered the product inferior to traditional pot still rum. At the same time, new and more efficient processes for refining sugar produced a molasses with much less sugar content, which further reduced the quality of the resulting rum. Following the pattern of a general decline in price of sugar and consolidation in the whole Caribbean in the 1900s, British Guiana saw the number of distilleries in the country drop from 180 in 1849 to forty-four in 1908 to eight in 1959. The Booker Bros. & Company dominated the sugar and rum industry in the early to mid 1900s. In 1949, the company purchased United Rum Merchants, the parent company of Black Heart, Lamb's Navy Rum, Lemon Hart, and Red Heart rums. At its peak, it controlled 75% of the sugar industry in British Guiana and was so powerful that a common joke was to refer to the country as "Booker's Guiana".N. Draper, ‘Helping to make Britain great: the commercial legacies of slave-ownership in Britain’, in C. Hall, N. Draper, K. McClelland, K. Donington, and R. Lang, Legacies of British Slave-Ownership: Colonial Slavery and the Formation of Victorian Britain (2014), pp.78-126.
Independence, government mismanagement, and rebound
In 1966, British Guiana declared independence and changed the country's name to Guyana. By this point, only five distilleries were left in the country. In 1970, the British Navy discontinued the practice of the daily rum ration, and around this time, dark rum was falling out of favor, replaced by a boom in demand for cheap, light, white rum, such as those of Bacardi or Havana Club. During a period of increasing socialism in the region, under the leadership of Prime Minister Forbes Burnham, Guyana nationalized major industries, including the production of sugar and rum. However, the economy declined in the decade following this decision, and the economy was described by Guyana's Ministry of Finance as a "one-party administrative dictatorship" as "the Government pursued policies of mismanagement" using "political interference, compounded by poor management". Sugar production, rum production, and wages all fell catastrophically. During this time, in 1975, Yesu Persaud became the executive chairman at Diamond Liquors Limited. He led the initiative to combine the three last remaining distilleries, Diamond, Uitvlugt, and Enmore, into a single state-run company, Guyana Liquor Company, and oversaw the closing of all other distilleries in the country. Soon after, the government began a process of divesting and privatizing these industries, and the new government under Prime Minister Desmond Hoyt asked the Booker group to come back to Guyana in 1990. With the closure of Uitvlugt distillery , Diamond became the last distillery to continue operating in the country. 1992, DDL released their house-branded rum, El Dorado, and later rebranded their entry level rums to Diamond Reserve, keeping El Dorado for their more premium offerings. On September 27, 2024, a fire destroyed DDL's power station, causing the company to have to rely on temporary power solutions.
Organization
Historic distilleries absorbed into DDL
La Bonne Intention was a sugar plantation and distillery established sometime between 1759 and 1873, and the distillery was closed in 1959. Its Coffey still is presumed to be scrapped, but the Savalle stills continue to reproduce their marque, LBI.
Skeldon was a sugar plantation and distillery established sometime between 1802 and 1834, and the distillery was closed in 1960. Its Coffey still is presumed to be scrapped, but the Savalle stills continue to reproduce their marques, SWR, SM, and CG.
Blairmont was a sugar plantation and distillery established sometime between 1802 and 1834, and the distillery was closed in 1962. Its Savalle still is presumed to be scrapped, either immediately after closure, or after being transferred to Uitvlugt (the one built by Uitvlugt in 1980 may be a replacement for this still), but the Savalle stills at DDL continue to reproduce their marque, B.
Albion was a sugar plantation and distillery established sometime between 1802 and 1803, and the distillery was closed in 1968. The Port Mourant still was moved to Uitvlugt in 1968, with the AW marque retired, and the wooden Coffey still is presumed to be scrapped, but DDL continues to reproduce its marque, AN, on the Enmore wooden Coffey still, and later the Savalle stills.
Versailles was a coffee plantation that was transformed into a sugar plantation and distillery, and was established sometime between 1759 and 1776, and the distillery was closed in 1978. The Versailles still was moved to Enmore in 1978, and continues operating today at DDL producing its marques, VSG and REV, with the AWM, MEC, and MEV marques retired.
Enmore was a cotton plantation that was transformed into a sugar plantation and distillery, and was established sometime between 1759 and 1776. The distillery purchased Lusignan distillery in the late 1780s or early 1790s, which itself closed in the 1960s to 1977, and fully absorbed into Enmore. No stills from Lusignan survive, and the KFM marque was reproduced at Enmore on the Coffey stills. Enmore merged with GDL (Uitvlugt) and DLL (Diamond) to form the company DDL under state control, before the distillery was closed in 1993. The Versailles and the two Coffey stills were moved to Uitvlugt in 1994, and one of the two Coffey stills continues operating today at DDL producing its marques, EHP, ELCR, and MD, with the marques NP, MXE, VNL, and KF retired. It is also likely that the Enmore still produced the AN marque at some point.
Port Mourant was a cotton plantation that was transformed into a sugar plantation and distillery, and was established sometime between 1802 and 1813, and the distillery was closed in 1955. The Port Mourant still was moved to Albion in 1955, and continues operating today at DDL producing its marque, PM, with the AW, UPM, MPM, and GM marques retired.
Uitvlugt was a coffee plantation that was transformed into a sugar plantation and distillery, and was established sometime between 1759 and 1776, and the distillery was closed in 1999. The two French Savalle stills were moved to DDL in 2000, and continue operating today at DDL producing their marques, ICBU and UMS, as well as reproducing the marques of several defunct stills, with the ICBC, DK, ICB, SP ICBU, ULR, and MGS marques retired.
Diamond is a distillery and former sugar plantation, and was established in 1753, and the distillery continues to operate today. The two Diamond Coffey stills are original to Diamond, and continue operating today at DDL producing their marques, SVW, as well as reproducing the marques of several defunct stills, with the S, SW, W, SSN, and SV marques retired.
Current constitution
Demerara Distillers Ltd. (DDL) is a publicly owned company headquartered in Georgetown. DLL owns Demerara Fire and General Insurance Company Inc., Solutions 2000, Demerara Contractors Limited, Topco, and other subsidiary companies include Distribution Services Limited and European Breitenstein Holdings BV. They were one of the first five companies to become certified by ISO 9001 international Standard System, enabling export quality goods.
Under government management, DDL became the world's second largest producer of rum. DDL was one of the first state-owned manufacturers to be semi-privatized under the Economic Recovery Program in 1988. 12 million new shares were issued, reducing government ownership to roughly 47%, although another attempt to issue shares in 1990 was blocked by the government.
In 2006, DDL obtained one-third of the shares of National Rums of Jamaica, which is a subsidiary of Jamaica's National Sugar Company Limited.
Yesu Persaud was chairman of DDL until 2013. Through his contributions to Guyanese industry, 1983 he was awarded the Cacique Crown of Honour.
Komal Samaroo became the new CEO in 2014. In 2021, Samaroo addressed the threat that the Venezuelan border issue has on "Guyana's supply chain for agriculture and other food products to the region, and even further afield".
In 2016, Bharrat Jagdeo claimed that billions of dollars were lost tax settlement between DDL and the Guyana Revenue Authority. In 2002, a dispute arose regarding a consumption tax of about GY$5.3 billion.
, the production manager at Diamond Distillery is Darryl Manichand, the master blender is Sharon Sue-Hang, and the master distiller is Shaun Caleb.
Rum production
DDL powers their distillery using a combination of burning heavy fuel oil, as well as biogas produced by their own waste combined with locally sourced cow manure, and their water is sourced from groundwater from three deep wells. The biogas plant was shut down in 2019 for leaking wastewater into surrounding properties, but it was restarted a year later after fixes were made.