What exactly defines an "English" rum?

I noticed that many people call a rum, "English". And that this is a very wide range, lots of different rums can have that "tag". I understand "French" and "Spanish" rum better, but "English" remains cloudy for me. What are its characteristics, exactly? While reading various articles on different types of rum online, i happened upon one, putting together as an example, the majority of my most beloved products/distilleries ever, under "English Rum" category and specifically: St. Lucia, Mount Gay, Foursquare, El Dorado, Appleton. I feel ashamed for not knowing stuff inside out, especially for my own or other people's top-shelfers (El Dorado is not a top shelf item for me, but i can see where others for whom is they come from plus i respect them), so if you'd be so kind and given that you are much more experienced than me, please enlighten me!

First of all, I’m no expert at this. I'm sure there are many members who are much better at this subject than I am, so this are just my thoughts on the subject and how I handle it. To divide rum according to Spanish, English and French style isn’t very good in my opinion, but I also do so most of the time. It’s actually much better to divide by production method and raw material in accordance with the Gargano system. However, I believe that we will have to live with the first dividing for the foreseeable future. But it’s not only within the English style that the production methods differ between the distilleries, it also applies to the other two styles. The English style is in normally always molasses based, even if there are deviations. St. Lucia distillers for example also mix in cane juice based rum in the 1931 series. Molasses also differs, above all Guyana (Demerara) molasses based rum differs in taste from rum distilled from other molasses. Then we have the distillation method, where the English style uses both pot stills and column stills, but not the 5-column “industrial” stills that’s very common in production of the Spanish styled rum. The above mentioned makes me subdivide the English style into: Demerara (both pot still and a blend of pot still and column still) rom, Pot still (for example, Hampden and Worthy Park from Jamaica) rum, Blend of Pot still and Column still (for example, most of the rum from Barbados and Jamaica) rum, Column still (for example, English Harbour and many others not included in the above mentioned) rum.

It's a misleading classification, according to Garganos classification system. https://refinedvices.com/the-rum-classification As you can see in the picture, it summarizes all possible countries and describes heavy and more intense rum. This old classification is inadequate these days as manufacturing processes have changed and we have a greater variety of rums. If you talk about El Dorado, you mean the standard range? Demerara has the oldest stills and they can also produce the oldest marks. Therefore it's one of the top distilleries. You should try the El Dorado Rare Collection (3rd release).

What exactly defines an "English" rum? vomi1011 user image

Thank you, Stefan and Vomi! Much obliged!

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