The beach to bottle movement has spread across America Chances are your piece of the islands is waiting at a retailer or watering hole near you. Find out where with a zip and a click below. If you come up empty, let us know on the and we'll set a course to make it right. You must be 21 years of age or older to view this website. LET ME KNOW WHERE I CAN FIND MY BLUE CHAIR BAY.Nothing beats discovering rum on its home turf. Shaken and stirred with some of the finest spirits in the world, there is no shortage of rum-fueled cocktails and rummy punches in the Caribbean. Although they're popular crowd-pleasers, those familiar fruity watered-down concoctions served in coconut shells can get old. For something a little stronger, head to the source and take a tour through a rum distillery to see how the real stuff is made, sip the gratis samples and learn how to create a creative cocktail guaranteed to impress. From time-capsule distilleries that still use old copper pots to ultra-modern ones that churn out thousands of bottles a year, rummin’ around a rum distillery is a liquid history lesson worth learning.
In the Cockpit region surrounded by limestone hills and the Black River, Appleton Estate has been making rum since 1749. Two hours south of Montego Bay, the heirloom distillery that makes the world’s oldest barrel-aged rum uses naturally-filtered water and sugarcane that is grown, cut and juiced at the Estate. A national treasure in the Nassau Valley, the distillery is also where Joy Spence has the honor of being the first woman in the rum-producing world to hold the prestigious title of Master Blender. "To create a new rum," she says as she scurries about her rum lab, "you first identify the style of rum, then look at the stocks that are available bearing in mind the compatibility of the different marquees and how they’ll react when they’re blended together." Tours show off the big copper pots that give the rum its distinctive character and the ageing house where the potent spirits rest in oak barrels for up to 50 years. Offered Monday to Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., tours start at USD$25.
A tasting session, complimentary bottle and recipes for artsy cocktails like the gingery Jamaica Mule and lemony Honey Soother are included in the tour price. Should you work up an appetite, add USD$15 for a Jamaican lunch. Although bottles are sold island-wide and duty-free at the airport, the gift shop is the only place you’ll find the Appleton Estate Edition ready to go in a fancy wooden box. Nowhere else in the rum-making Caribbean do butterflies and rum marry as nicely as they do in the Angostura Distillery in Trinidad's Port of Spain, which also houses a museum, art gallery and retail store. Start with the tour where the '1919 Aged' variety (named for the rum found in charred casks that were filled in 1919 and discovered after a fire thirteen years later) is made and stay to peruse the magnificent butterfly collection. Although the world's market leader for bitters is also distilled in the massive complex, it’s the fine rums that are the main ingredients in classic Trinidad cocktails like the pink grapefruit-infused ‘Rum and Ting' and the diet-forgetting ‘Jammy Rum Sour’ blended curiously with half an egg (no yolk) , raspberry jam and vanilla-flavored ‘Reserva Rum’.
Tours are given Monday to Friday at 9:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. with a minimum of eight rum-lovers on each tour. The USD$10 ticket buys the guided tour that includes sampling at the horseshoe-shaped bar and plenty of time to check out the butterflies.Cayman Spirits Company Distillery | Cayman IslandsIn a gray building with tiny windows, the small-batch Cayman Spirits Company Distillery is only maker of rum in Grand Cayman. Nondescript on North Church Street in George Town, the distillery with its giant steaming copper contraptions and bubbling tanks of water simmering with sugar cane harvested at the farms in the East End, looks more like a warehouse in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory than a rum distillery. Using a unique technique called ocean-ageing, the rum is stored in oak casks and dropped 42 feet underwater or exactly seven fathoms, where the motion of the ocean ages the aptly named Seven Fathoms Rum to smooth perfection. Tours are conducted Monday to Saturday at 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. and priced at USD$15.
Linger in the Tasting Room for the samples of the signature Seven Fathoms, Governor’s Reserve Rum and the fancier varieties flavored with coconut.Sandwiched between the fields of sugar cane and the Atlantic Ocean on the east side of Martinique, Habitation Clement is where Rhum Clément has been distilled for more than a century. A historical landmark registered with the Ministry of Culture since 1996, the plantation is equal parts distillery, museum, botanical gardens, fine arts gallery and gorgeous venue for weddings, not to mention the only Creole plantation that is entirely open to the public. The family mansion, decorated with the original furnishings and keepsakes, is time travel through the pages of French West Indian history. Formerly known as Domaine de l'Acajou, the shrine to fine rum is open every day of the year from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. with the last tour getting underway at 5 p.m. Self-guided with audio in English, tours last 90 minutes and cost about USD$13 or 12 Euros. Courtesy of the catwalk that passes above the two wings of the distillery, rum-philes can see where the aromatic rums are aged, fermented and stored.
Yes, the rum tastings are the big draw but stay awhile and peruse the gift shop with its shelves of rare bottles and petit versions of rum barrels (holds four gallons and costs about USD$180), which just may make your at- home bar the hippest on the block.It’s the world’s largest family-owned spirits company and in San Juan, tours of Casa Bacardi are tops with fans of fine rum. From its humble beginnings in Cuba to the untameable spirit it is today, Bacardi is the most awarded rum in the world. Zipping around in a Bacardi trolley, tours travel through the museum to soak up tidbits about its 150 year old history. One must-see is the giant bat statue, which became a symbol of good fortune after Doña Amalia Bacardí spotted fruit bats in the family’s distillery and insisted it become the moniker of her company. There are a few tour options — all offered hourly — starting with the no-frills USD$12 ticket that includes a distillery tour, souvenir cup, rum cocktail and recipe book.
For the more serious-minded, the USD$45 Tasting Tour whets the appetite with generous samples and for diehards, the Mixology Tour, also priced at USD$45, ups the ante by adding a cocktail class where bartenders teach the fine art of muddling mojitos and shaking daiquiris. Fans on all tours are treated to a short film shown in the theater, which awes with its star-lit ceiling that depicts the constellations as they might have looked when Bacardi was founded on February 4, 1862. The gift shop stand-out is the USD$85 bottle of 16-year aged Bacardi Reserva Limitada that comes with a certificate of authenticity.West Indies Rum Distillery | Barbados As the onetime capital of sugar, Barbados still has a robust rum culture with Mount Gay the top-seller and tours of its distillery a predictable stop for tourists. For those who have been there and done that, check out the lesser-known West Indies Rum Distillery that has the real star power. In the southern parish of St. Michael, the scruffy seaside distillery has seen the turn of not one but two centuries.