The Charles H. Baker Jr. text instructs to use “finest white rum available” and suggests Havana Club (so white rum, not gold rum. Havana Club is aged and charcoal stripped of color). At Loyal Nine, I used Privateer's white rum gussied up with some Rhum JM Agricole (see either my blog post on CocktailVirgin and/or my article in Punch Drinks). At home when I first made the drink back in 2010, I used El Dorado 3 Year White Rum since it seemed appropriate for the Guyana genesis of the drink (even if they were using Cuban rum when Baker had it, I can't get that here).

Whoops! Now fixed. Thanks for pointing out.