Each few months, a tanker ship pulls into Saint Lucia’s Roseau Bay, and anchors. A diver drops into the water and attaches an 8-inch versatile hose to the ship. The hose is linked to a 12-inch pipeline that runs for 194 meters underwater earlier than hitting land and popping up in the course of a seashore and persevering with overland for simply over a kilometer. Ultimately the pipe connects to certainly one of a number of gigantic tanks.
For the following a number of hours, thick black liquid flows from the ship to the tank-liquid that’s very important to the positioning’s operation. Not oil, however fairly molasses: Since Saint Lucia not grows sufficient sugar to make any considerable quantity of molasses on the island, this undersea dance is how the island’s one distillery– St. Lucia Distillers – receives its very important feedstock.
This undersea molasses switch is simply one of many many distinctive points of the distillery, a lot of which I skilled firsthand throughout a Could 2019 go to to Saint Lucia to meet with WIRSPA representatives.
Fashion-wise, St. Lucia Distillers is an amalgamation of many different Caribbean distillery templates: It makes use of each cane juice and molasses, a number of yeast strains, and three several types of stills – we’ll dive deep later. All these manufacturing choices enable the distillers to create all kinds of base rums, which they mix into a number of product traces with many expressions. Not like distilleries that hew to all–pot distilled or all–column distilled rums, St. Lucia’s Distillers heart of gravity is a mix of pot and column nonetheless rum, one thing additionally seen on different islands resembling Barbados and Jamaica.
Briefly recounting the historical past of St. Lucian rum, historic analysis reveals that St. Lucia wasn’t a big rum exporter through the 1800s to mid-1900s. The out there export figures by no means rise above 70,000 gallons per yr, a tiny quantity in comparison with Jamaica, Demerara, and Martinique–all of which exported thousands and thousands of gallons yearly.
The St. Lucia Distillers story begins in 1931 when Denis Barnard constructed a distillery at Dennery, on the jap shores of St. Lucia. 4 a long time later, in 1972, the Barnard household merged operations with the Geest household, who owned the one different working rum distillery on the island. The Geest’s Roseau Bay Distillery was located on the alternative facet of the Island, due west of the Dennery distillery.
After the 2 households merged operations in 1972, operations ceased on the Dennery distillery and all manufacturing moved to the Roseau Bay facility
The primary rum from the mixed operation was named Denros, created from the primary three letters of every distillery – “Den” and “Ros.” Denros Sturdy Rum, an unaged, 80 p.c ABV firebreather, continues to be bought as we speak on St. Lucia.
In 1993, the Barnard household purchased out the Geest household’s shares to take full possession of the corporate, albeit at a distinct distillery than the one they in-built 1931.
The winds of change blew stronger in 1998 when the Barnards bought 24.9 p.c of the corporate to Trinidad’s Angostura Restricted – sure, that Angostura of bitters and rum fame. The mother or father firm of Angostura, CLICO, later acquired the remaining shares of St. Lucia Distillers in 2005 to take full possession. Nevertheless, Laurie Barnard, grandson of Denis Barnard, remained because the managing director till his passing in 2012.
2009 introduced the fiscal collapse of CL Monetary, the overarching mother or father firm of St. Lucia Distillers in addition to Angostura, Appleton, and E&A Scheer. Within the decade prior, CL Monetary had purchased up many high-profile spirit producers earlier than going bankrupt. (It’s a tangled story that I wrote about right here.) For our functions, St. Lucia Distillers was basically up on the market from 2009 onward.
A brand new company mother or father appeared in 2016 within the type of Spiribam, the spirits division of Groupe Bernard Hayot (GBH). GBH already held Martinique’s Rhum Clemént and Rhum J.M of their portfolio, and Saint Lucia itself is only a brief ferry journey from Martinique.
Spiribam quickly started an aggressive renovation and improve program for the distillery, in addition to substantial revamping of the model portfolio. (Extra on this later.)
It’s a scorching, humid Could morning after I arrive at St. Lucia Distillers, henceforth known as SLD for brevity’s sake. After gawking on the show case crammed with dozens of alcoholic choices made on the distillery, I first meet Michael Speakman, SLD’s gross sales and advertising director, earlier than being handed off to Lennox Wilson, the distillery’s manufacturing supervisor.
Wilson has a protracted historical past within the rum business: Earlier than coming to SLD in 2009, he had labored for practically each Jamaican rum producer, in addition to a stint within the beer business. Briefly, he’s impeccably certified to make the numerous completely different rums SLD is legendary for.
Leaving the cooling confines of the administration constructing, my tour begins the place most distillery excursions start-water sources. Right here, the distillery makes use of two water sources: The close by Roseau river, and harvested rainwater collected in varied locations across the distillery grounds. Ought to rainfall be inadequate, they’ll faucet right into a reserve pond owned by the Ministry of Agriculture.
Past a fence-and between us and the ocean-is a sugar cane discipline. Whereas St. Lucia stopped rising cane on a industrial scale in 1962, SLD now maintains fifteen acres of fields used to make cane juice rums. The blue and inexperienced cane varietals harvested by hand every year present a really small quantity of the fermentable materials SLD makes use of, however enlarges the palette of rums for the blenders to work with.
In fact, nearly all of the rums made at SLD originate from molasses, which brings us again to the underwater pipeline delivering straight from the ship to the distillery’s molasses tanks. Every supply is 2,000 to 2,500 metric tons, primarily sourced from the Dominican Republic and Central America.
Throughout my go to, the distillery’s current tanks held as much as 2,400 metric tons of molasses. Nevertheless, subsequent upgrades greater than doubled that to five,300 metric tons, enabling them to retailer a whole yr’s provide of molasses on web site.
One other enjoyable truth includes the distillery’s vitality supply. Their steam necessities are met through three boilers, powered by recycled ship oil. The financial savings from not shopping for diesel gasoline defrays a considerable quantity of operational prices. Within the occasion sufficient ship oil isn’t out there, they’ll use typical diesel gasoline discovered at web sites like https://www.bondedoil.com, to energy the boilers.
Entering into the principle distillery constructing, Wilson and I climb as much as a catwalk that places us subsequent to a number of massive metal tanks: A 2,273 liter yeast propagator and two 50,000 liter “mom vessels”. Right here is the place yeast propagation and the blending of yeast, water, and molasses to make a wash happens. Two completely different yeast strains are employed, often known as Kind A and Kind B are employed right here.
The preliminary brix of the molasses is round 85, which is introduced all the way down to round 20 brix through dilution previous to fermentation.
The ultimate fermentation happens on the different finish of the distillery constructing, in certainly one of eight open-air, temperature-controlled tanks, every 15,900 liters in capability.
The standard molasses fermentation takes round 24 to 36 hours, with a brief resting interval of a number of hours afterward. The ensuing fermented wash is round 7 p.c ABV.
As for the cane juice fermentation, it’s completed with a mixture of ambient, wild yeast and industrial yeast.
In terms of distillation choices, SLD has a full home with 4 stills, every completely different from the others:
John Dore 1
A small double-retort pot nonetheless made by the John Dore firm in 1998 and which lately underwent substantial refurbishment. Its capability is 100 imperial gallons (454 liters) and may produce simply over 25,000 LAA (liters of absolute alcohol) per yr, at round 85 to 87 p.c ABV.
Apparently, through the refurbishment, the retorts have been by chance put in within the unsuitable order. A number of months after my go to, I used to be instructed that the retorts shall be restored to their unique ordering on the subsequent upkeep interval.
(Editorial notice: This seemingly arcane element of the nonetheless refurbishment obtained a considerable amount of curiosity from SLD followers on Fb after I posted footage of the retorts from my go to. It wasn’t lengthy till a number of “earlier than/after” photographs of the nonetheless have been circulating and being intently scrutinized. By no means underestimate how wonky rum geeks will get!)
John Dore 2
One other double-retort nonetheless and a considerably bigger model of the John Dore 1, put in in 2005. At 6,000 liters (or 1,319 imperial gallons), the John Dore 2 has 13 occasions of the capability of the John Dore 1, producing as a lot as 168,000 LAA per yr at 85 to 87 p.c ABV. This nonetheless lately obtained a brand new swan neck connecting the pot to the primary retort.
Vendome
A hybrid nonetheless, i.e. a pot nonetheless with an hooked up nine-plate column neck; it started operation in February of 2003 after being bought from Trinidad Distillers Ltd, aka Angostura. Its capability is 300 imperial gallons (1,363 liters), and it’s able to producing 20,360 LAA per yr at 85 to 87 p.c ABV.
The rum from this nonetheless may be very recognizable to my style buds; It makes the rubbery notes that I’ve come to affiliate with sure SLD rums.
McMillan Ltd Coffey
A twin column nonetheless, put in in 1985. It has a forty five plate rectification column, and may produce round 4,500 LAA per day at 93-95% ABV. On a yearly foundation, that’s 1 million LAA.
Three completely different rums are collected from completely different plates on this nonetheless. For lighter rums, yeast Kind A (talked about earlier) is used for fermentation, with assortment from a really excessive plate (40). For heavier rums, yeast Kind B is utilized, and assortment occurs on decrease plates (30 and 32).
Let’s now briefly return to the sugar cane that SLD grows. The ensuing cane juice is a comparatively small amount-so small that it’s not viable to run it by means of the 2 bigger stills, i.e. the John Dore 2 and the Coffey nonetheless. Thus, any SLD cane juice rum was made with the John Dore 1 or Vendome stills.
From these 4 stills, SLD makes eight completely different distillates. Wait! How is that this potential? Some stills make multiple sort of rum:
- John Dore 1: Two distillates-one from a molasses wash, the opposite from a cane juice wash.
- John Dore 2: One distillate from a molasses wash
- Vendome: Two distillates-one from a molasses wash, the opposite from a cane juice wash.
- McMillan Coffey: Three distillates-Mild, medium, and heavy, from a molasses wash.
As for the Coffey nonetheless distillates, the sunshine spirit is made with yeast Kind A and is taken from a excessive plate, quantity 40. Whereas not precisely impartial, it’s very gentle and is used primarily for mixing or within the Denros Sturdy Rum.
The medium and heavy Coffey nonetheless spirits ferment with yeast Kind B. The medium rum is collected from plate 32, whereas the heavy is collected from plate 30. Not like the sunshine rum, the medium and heavy distillates are aged previous to mixing.
Talking of getting older, we didn’t go to any of the first getting older warehouses throughout my go to. Nevertheless, there was a smaller getting older space inside the principle distillery constructing that held a couple of hundred barrels. Whereas very picturesque in an “previous time distillery” form of method, future plans are for this small getting older space to develop into a part of a customer’s heart. Unhappy as that may sound, a contemporary customer’s heart is a a lot wanted addition to the distillery if “civilian” vacationers are to return by means of, not simply rum geeks.
Per Wilson, rums at SLD usually enter the cask at round 63 p.c ABV. Whereas many of the top-tier rums from SLD comprise a mix of rums within the six- to eleven-year vary, the distillery additionally has readily available rums aged as much as nineteen years, which I used to be privileged to strive. A few of these rums will find yourself as single cask picks launched into the market within the coming years.
The distillery portion of my go to wrapped up within the mixing corridor, crammed with tanks as much as 10,000 gallons in capability. I observed a number of finned contraptions on wheels, which the veteran distillery customer would recognizable as chill filtration items; SLD chill filters a few of the rums it exports.
Adjoining the mixing corridor is a well-stocked laboratory, filled with the same old chemistry evaluation tools and lots of of pattern bottles of all method of shapes, sizes, coloring, and packaging.
With the distillery portion of my go to over, Wilson launched me to Roger Miller, SLD’s high quality assurance coordinator and laboratory supervisor. Miller and I adjourned to a blissfully cool boardroom. Ready for me on the head of a big convention desk was a assassin’s row of pattern glasses crammed with rum – nineteen in whole. You’ll recall that the distillery makes eight several types of distillates-seven of them have been current in unaged type on the bottommost row. The center row contained aged variations of the distillates, and the highest row contained last, bottled expressions. All besides the ultimate row of samples have been considerably increased than 40 p.c ABV, so I had my work lower out for me to remain up to the mark!
With assistance from a slide presentation, Miller walked me by means of the technical particulars of every pattern. As cool as that was, what actually rocked my boat have been the slides exhibiting in nice element how most of the exported expressions, resembling Chairman’s Reserve and Admiral Rodney, are blended – from the part distillates and getting older protocols to the ultimate mix. Really a rum geek’s dream PowerPoint presentation!
There was method an excessive amount of element within the presentation to completely seize right here, however I famous some key factors for the exported product traces:
Bounty
The Bounty line was initially solely bought domestically on St. Lucia as a value-oriented model. When Spiribam bought SLD, they noticed the potential of distributing Bounty in different markets. Initially the road was fully column distilled rum. Nevertheless, the newly added Bounty Premium Darkish expression has a little bit of the Vendome pot nonetheless distillate.
Admiral Rodney
Named for an essential British admiral of the 1700s, Admiral Rodney rum was initially a single expression, column-distilled rum-and a wholesome step up from the Bounty line. Whereas Admiral Rodney was exported, it didn’t obtain practically the advertising consideration because the top-tier Chairman’s Reserve line. After the acquisition, Spiribam noticed a possibility and expanded Admiral Rodney to 3 expressions. Every is column-distilled rum from the McMillan nonetheless, with considerably extra age than the Bounty lineup rums.
The three Admiral Rodney expressions take their names from ships in Rodney’s fleet that participated within the extraordinarily essential Battle of the Saintes in 1782:
The entry tier HMS Princessa is a mix of medium and heavy column rums, aged for 5 to seven years in ex-bourbon, adopted by two years in ex-port casks.
The center tier HMS Royal Oak is comprised of medium column distillate, aged in ex-bourbon casks for six to 12 years. The Royal Oak mix is basically unchanged from the unique Admiral Rodney mix.
The highest shelf HMS Formidable is fully the heavy column distillate, aged for ten to fifteen years in ex-bourbon.
Chairman’s Reserve
The Chairman’s line, launched in 1999 represents the highest tier of SLD rums. Initially it was composed of 4 rums: The unique Chairman’s Reserve, a calmly aged/filtered white rum, a spiced rum, and the “Forgotten Cask,”initially a restricted version created from Chairman’s Reserve that by chance aged for a further 4 years after some casks have been misplaced following a distillery fireplace. The Forgotten Cask was so effectively obtained that SLD determined to make extra in the identical model, albeit with out forgetting the place the casks have been getting older.
1931
Beside the usually launched, high tier Chairman’s Reserve rums, SLD additionally made a restricted version, yearly launch of rums dubbed “1931,” in honor of the distillery’s begin date. Every year’s 1931 launch was a distinct mix of rums, differentiated by differing label colours.
After Spiribam bought SLD, it distributed with the yearly limited-edition 1931 releases. Nevertheless, it saved the 1931 moniker and bottle format, locked the mix elements, and made it the brand new high line expression within the Chairman’s Reserve lineup. Restated, a “1931” model rum continues to be made, however it’s not a restricted launch and doesn’t change from yr to yr. It’s now often known as Chairman’s Reserve 1931.
A short overview of the Chairman’s Reserve lineup blends:
Chairman’s Reserve: A mix of pot and column nonetheless rum, aged individually, then blended and additional aged. The common age of the mix, albeit not an age assertion, is 5 years.
Chairman’s Reserve White: A mix of pot and column nonetheless rums, aged individually in American white oak for 3 to 4 years, then filtered for coloration.
Chairman’s Reserve Spiced Authentic: The unique Chairman’s Reserve rum, infused with bois bandé,a neighborhood Caribbean bark culturally recognized for its aphrodisiac qualities, in addition to native spices and fruits resembling cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, vanilla, allspice, and lemon and orange peels.
Chairman’s Reserve Forgotten Cask: Just like the baseline Chairman’s Reserve however aged longer; the rums on this mix are between six and eleven years of age.
Chairman’s Reserve 1931: The mix of this rum is tough to explain, so I’ll let the picture beneath do the work. That mentioned, it incorporates seven distillates from all 4 SLD stills-six use a molasses wash, and one makes use of cane juice. The ensuing mix is 72 p.c column and 28 p.c pot, with rums aged between six and eleven years.
Apart from a couple of very massive producers, the rum business isn’t as worthwhile as you may suppose. Even well-known manufacturers have struggled to remain financially afloat and stay unbiased. Over the previous decade, we’ve seen hallowed manufacturers snapped up by larger spirits consortiums (as an example, Mount Homosexual by Remy Cointreau, Appleton Property by Campari, and West Indies Rum Distillery by Plantation Rum).
To the credit score of the aforementioned purchasers, every acquisition was adopted by a considerable infusion of cash to refurbish and improve tools and revamp the advertising. In my go to to St. Lucia Distillers, I noticed the identical dynamic at play. Whereas a small a part of me needs iconic distilleries might stay frozen in time, the fact is that solely by adapting and altering can these distilleries stay viable in an ever-expanding spirits market. In that regard, I’m fairly glad that St. Lucia Distillers and its glorious rum portfolio are in good fingers, making it potential for extra fans to go to the distillery, in addition to proceed to purchase their distinctive rums.
