Rum regions: Saint Lucia
Unlike islands like Jamaica, Barbados, Cuba and Martinique which were flagships of Caribbean rum-making for centuries, St. Lucia’s reputation as a top-tier rum maker came more recently. This isn’t to say St. Lucia is new to making rum—distilling was underway there by the late 1700s— but the island’s colonial-era production was minuscule compared to British Empire siblings like Barbados, Jamaica, and British Guiana.
Like many Caribbean colonies during the 1800s, St. Lucia started migrating away from making rum after global sugar prices crashed, making Caribbean sugar estates unprofitable. Only two estates distilled rum in St. Lucia in 1897. Their combined capacity was only 60,000 gallons, less than 2 percent of what British Guiana distilled.
St. Lucia’s slow climb to premier rum maker status started in 1931 when Denis Barnard built a distillery at Dennery on the island’s eastern shore. In 1972 Barnard merged his company with the island’s only other rum distillery, creating St. Lucia Distillers. The combined company moved all operations to Roseau Bay on St. Lucia’s western coast.
For the first 25 years, St. Lucia Distillers made only column distilled rum. The company’s first brand was Denros, an unaged rum bottled at 80 percent ABV and still sold today on the island. The distillery launched the Bounty brand in 1975 and Admiral Rodney in 1981. All three brands were originally only sold in St. Lucia.
The distillery’s rum-making prowess significantly accelerated in 1998 when Laurie Barnard, grandson of Denis, acquired the distillery’s first pot still. It was the first step in St. Lucia Distillers venturing into sophisticated pot/column blends. Chairman’s Reserve soon took its place as the distillery’s premier brand.
In 2005, the Barnard family sold St. Lucia Distillers to CL Financial. At the time, CL Financial owned Angostura and later purchased J. Wray & Nephew (Appleton), E&A Scheer, and several more well-known spirits producers. However, the subsequent 2007-2009 financial crisis forced CL Financial to sell most of its assets, St. Lucia Distillers among them. The French company Spiribam purchased the distillery in 2017 to add to its existing portfolio of Rhum J.M and Rhum Clement. Since purchasing the distillery, Spiribam has invested heavily in distillery upgrades, overhauled all its brands, and reintroduced them to international markets.
Today, St. Lucia Distillers operates three pot stills and a column still. The most unusual pot still is the Vendome, referring to the Kentucky company that made it. It has an unusual configuration for a large-scale Caribbean distillery, consisting of a small kettle topped by a short nine-plate rectifying column. The “rubbery” aroma found the Vendome’s distillate is a signature note of St. Lucia Distillers.
The remaining two pot stills both utilize a double retort configuration and are made by John Dore. The smaller, John Dore 1, has just a 100-gallon kettle. The larger, John Dore 2, makes over 10 times the amount of rum. However, the true workhouse of St. Lucia Distillers is the McMillan Coffey still, which outproduces all the pot stills several times over. Three marks, light, medium, and heavy, are taken from different plates of the McMillan.
While traditionally a molasses-based distillery, St. Lucia Distillers recently has started making small batches of rum using juice from sugarcane grown at the distillery. The two smaller stills, the Vendome and John Dore 1, perform all the cane juice distillations. Between its two source materials (cane juice and molasses) and four stills, the distillery’s blenders have eight different marques to work with. Given that enthusiasts now eagerly buy both distillery’s mainstream expressions and numerous limited editions is a testament to the skills and aging stock of St. Lucia Distillers’ blenders.
Saint Lucia