Touring Jamaica's Renowned Rum Distilleries Pt. 1

In part one of this 'Destination Drinking' newsletter on The Tipsy Traveler, I share a collection of images from my rum-filled trip to Jamaica with The Whisky Exchange with some contextual tidbits.

The ‘Destination Drinking’ section on The Tipsy Traveler is designed to inspire your next trip or visit to a range of places around the world. Expect city guides, place-oriented stories, personal travel essays, hotel and bar reviews, and general travel lifestyle tips for the tipsy traveler.

Note: this photo-led newsletter is best viewed on Substack as it’ll exceed the email length for inboxes.

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If reggae music is the rhythmic heartbeat of Jamaican culture, rum—white overproof, specifically—is the country’s lifeforce; its energetic body; spirit, if you will. Rum is in the food — whether it be rum-soaked fruits in Christmastime cakes, or jerk sauce; it’s used as a multi-purpose medicine, poured into the hands and rubbed on the face and under armpits for headaches, fevers and other ailments (the Jamaican equivalent of how some Asian and Latin-American families use Vicks vapor rub). Rum is drunk to celebrate and mourn the life of loved ones; rum in Jamaica knows no bounds.

Over the course of my week in Jamaica with The Whisky Exchange crew (the self-proclaimed ‘dunderheads’), which involved visiting five of the country’s six operating distilleries around the island—lots of bumpy, ‘Dutty Wine’-filled van rides included—I learned about more than just the intimate details of each distillery’s production methods. What I really learned is how rum is deeply threaded throughout all aspects of Jamaican culture — and that can only be truly felt and understood by being there.

From an outsider’s perspective, my drink-filled life may very well seem indulgent and occasionally superficial. But, more often than not, there’s an opportunity to intimately connect with other people and places if you ask the right questions; and the best journalists, the ones who tell the most compelling stories, always do. It’s one of my favorite parts of my job.

Touring Jamaica’s Rum Distilleries in Photos

I may not be able to communicate every pungent smell—from rotting meat and fruit, to yeasty delight—and every mind-boggling visual detail of the fermentations, but this little piece of photojournalism will do its best to paint a picture of our extraordinary experience learning about Jamaican rum. Hopefully, as you ask yourself ‘where to next?’ some of these images will manifest in your mind and inspire you to plan your own journey to the motherland of rum.

For a video recap, check out my Instagram reel which highlights clips from all the distilleries. Definitely worth a watch to get the full picture.

Terms to know as they relate to Jamaican rum, and what they vaguely relate to for context (I tried my best to simplify, but they’re quite technical):

Pot still - a category of still which is always made from copper in Jamaica. The pot stills found in Jamaica are double retort pot stills, and they create flavorful, full-bodied rums in a single distillation pass (typically distilled to somewhere between 60-80% ABV). In a nutshell, these are the stills that yield the big, pungent flavors and textures Jamaican rum is known for.
Column still - a category of still that allows continuous distillation, meaning they’re great for high yields compared to pot stills which require cleaning after each batch. Column still rums can be elegant and complex, but they’re typically associated with creating a lighter, less flavor-packed style of rum. (Happy to explain more should you need additional context.)
Wash - a mix of water, sugar (for rum, this is sugarcane juice, syrup, molasses, etc.), yeast and nutrients (which, for some high-ester Jamaican rum, includes cane acid). This mix is fermented to make an alcoholic base (read: a strong beer, around 8% ABV) which is then distilled into a spirit.
Fermentation tank - often made from cedar wood in Jamaica, this is where the fermentation process takes place pre-distillation with the wash.
Dunder - in essence, dunder is stillage. Stillage is what’s left in a pot still from the wash after distillation. All you need to know, is that the dunder is recycled into future fermentations and is partially responsible for high-hogo, or funky rums (think: aromas of overripe banana, petrol, and tropical fruit).
Muck/muck pit - muck is a sludge-like matter that is a combination of dunder, the dead remnants of the fermentation wash (i.e what’s left in the fermentation tank after it’s emptied, a lot of which is dead yeast), and acid-producing bacteria. I wasn’t able to take photos of it while in Jamaica, but it’s as nasty looking and potent as it sounds…but it’s an integral component of the wash and is the key ingredient for high-ester rums.
Esters - are organic flavor compounds that are created when alcohol combines with acid. Some examples of ones found in Jamaican rums are Ethyl Butyrate, Amyl Acetate, and Ethyl Acetate (the most common — this is when acetic acid and ethanol combine).

Hampden Estate

There’s no other distillery in the world that I wanted to visit more than Hampden Estate, so this visit was an emotional one. The distillery is known for its super funky rums, and rustic operations that are borderline magical. In 2018, the distillery released its first official bottlings under its own label (historically, the distillery only sold rum in bulk to other industries and independent bottlers as opposed to bottling its own rum). From the first time I tasted rums from Hampden Estate, I was hooked. These photos won’t give you the 4-D experience that is being there in person, but it’ll give you a gist of how incredible this place is. Microbes are abound at Hampden Estate distillery, and I roamed the grounds with this feeling that humans are just vehicles for the microscopic beings that make these rums so special. If there’s one distillery to visit, in my personal opinion, it’s this one.

Ms. Millie Miliken (an award-winning spirits journalist, and good friend of mine) and I very pleased to be at Hampden Estate.

The Great House at Hampden Estate

Looks like a tank at a machine graveyard; but nope, it’s still functioning and carrying some good old dunder.

Bucolic views from one of the decks where the stills were located.

The Great House pt. 2

Dunder being loaded into this container before being transported to a dunder tank.

Dunder tank; it’s alive!

I forget if this water is used for cooling stills, etc.; but just look at how nature has taken over this distillery. It was awesome in the truest sense of the word.

The, according to the brilliant Dawn Davies MW, “iconic” driveway leading to the distillery.

If I stumbled upon this place, I’d think it was abandoned. But nope, it’s just casually producing some of the most flavorful rums in the world. Mind-boggling stuff.

Me with a delicious ‘welcome’ rum punch.

Worthy Park Estate

The only distillery in Jamaica that grows, harvests, and processes its own sugarcane for its rums. Other distilleries source molasses, or have to send out their own sugarcane to be processed before the byproducts (i.e molasses) are returned, but Worthy Park Estate does it all themselves which is a unique feat. They have 10,000 acres of sugarcane fields, 20% of which is cut by machine, while the rest is hand-cut. Worthy Park is also the first distillery to produce rum in Jamaica, dating back to 1741. Locals drink their white overproof rum, called Rum Bar. At 63% ABV, it’s best to tread lightly.

The dunderheads very excited to be at another distillery.

The obligatory rum punch. This one is made with Rum Bar white overproof. Delish.

Entrance to where all the magic happens (i.e fermentation, distillation, bottling, aging, etc.)

Dawn (left) and Liz (right) having fun taking selfies at Worthy Park.

The only pot still at Worthy Park Estate. They can’t share their production numbers, but given how big the brand is we were surprised that this was the only pot still!

The only distillery where we got to see rum being bottled. It was Rum Bar and Rum Bar cream liqueur day on the bottling line.

Post-distillery stop at a roadside rum bar. We all had Rum Bar and Tings (local grapefruit soda, and the usual mixer for overproof rum in Jamaica). Thanks for posing, Millie!