The rum experience!
I finally decided to go see one of only 4 rum distilleries located on US territory. I'm not sure about drinking rum at 10AM but lots of people around here seem to do it just fine!
The old sugar mill that was used to crush cane back in the day. The distillery has cut it back about 10 feet, eliminating the vanes, and converted it into a 50,000 gallon cistern.
They mix molasses, water and yeast into huge vats, one vat to mix, the next to start the process of fermentation
The fermenting vat
The yeast at work
After this raw rum is done, they then pour it into enormous 20 foot barrels and then blend the rums into the smaller aging barrels
The aging barrels
Then they run the bottling and labeling operation. This was the "2 year gold rum" run
filling the bottles
the labeling machine
(sorry the photo is so lousy, but you are forbidden to use a flash. They have very high safety and fire worries. As you can guess, rum is very flammable.)
Packaging the rum
After the tour we were encouraged to start drinking. I tried their new blackstrap rum (really dark) later on--what an intense flavor! THey're also doing single barrel, aging 5 and 12 and even 25 years . . . all of the Scotch traditions are being explored, and it's quite good!
Next, kayaking and the cane fields!
The old sugar mill that was used to crush cane back in the day. The distillery has cut it back about 10 feet, eliminating the vanes, and converted it into a 50,000 gallon cistern.
They mix molasses, water and yeast into huge vats, one vat to mix, the next to start the process of fermentation
The fermenting vat
The yeast at work
After this raw rum is done, they then pour it into enormous 20 foot barrels and then blend the rums into the smaller aging barrels
The aging barrels
Then they run the bottling and labeling operation. This was the "2 year gold rum" run
filling the bottles
the labeling machine
(sorry the photo is so lousy, but you are forbidden to use a flash. They have very high safety and fire worries. As you can guess, rum is very flammable.)
Packaging the rum
After the tour we were encouraged to start drinking. I tried their new blackstrap rum (really dark) later on--what an intense flavor! THey're also doing single barrel, aging 5 and 12 and even 25 years . . . all of the Scotch traditions are being explored, and it's quite good!
Next, kayaking and the cane fields!