Mount Gay is the oldest brand of rum in the world. For more than 300 years, the drink has been made at the same factory, and production has never stopped for a single day. Today, Mount Gay Distilleries produces about 5 million liters of rum per year and exports the drink to 110 countries.
History reference. At the beginning of the 1703th century, the Mount Gilboa estate with extensive sugarcane plantations, located in the northern part of Barbados, belonged to the Sandyford family. In order to use the molasses left after processing the cane, a small distillery was built here in XNUMX.
In 1747, the estate was acquired by the English aristocrat John Sober. He was infrequently in Barbados, and therefore he appointed his friend John Guy Ellein as the manager of the plantations and distillery.
Sir Elaine went down in history as a talented entrepreneur, an outstanding politician who was elected to the Parliament of Barbados and fought for the abolition of slavery, and a philanthropist who opened schools for the children of the poor at his own expense. One of these establishments is still in operation today.
At that time, Barbados rum was considered the best in the world. Thanks to the leadership of Guy Alleyn, the Mount Gilboa distillery brought huge profits. Most of the products were exported to the North American colonies of England (future USA).
When Sir Guy Ellain died in 1801, the Sober family decided to name their company after him. But Barbados already had a Mount Ellaine plantation, so the distillery was named Mount Guy.
Until the beginning of the 1918th century, Mount Gay Distilleries was a small family business that supplied rum in casks to wholesale buyers. After the First World War, the company’s revenues dropped significantly, and in 33000 it was purchased by local planter Aubrey Fitzbert Ward for $XNUMX. Subsequently, marketer John Hudson became his partner. Under the new owners, rum began to be sold in bottles, not in kegs.
Aubrey Ward perfected the most famous and popular of the company’s rums – Mount Gay Eclipse (“Eclipse”), which is still considered the standard of the Barbadian rum-digestif. Experienced mixologists know that this drink is lighter than Jamaican rum and more aromatic than Cuban, and therefore they often recommend Mount Gay Eclipse to beginners for the first tasting.
Mr. Ward developed the basic principles that the company’s technologists still follow:
- the fermentation of molasses must takes place in wooden containers placed in a well-ventilated area. The company uses its own strain of yeast;
- thanks to the constantly blowing Barbados trade winds, the temperature of the fermentation process is not artificially regulated;
- one part of the wort is distilled twice in a copper cube, the other – in a copper column. The result is two types of raw rum with vastly different flavors;
- rum is aged in two types of 200-liter oak barrels: from bourbon and from whiskey;
- the aging of the drink takes place in a specially equipped room, in the walls of which holes are made for air circulation;
- aged rum spirits are mixed according to the recipe in large tanks. The drink is then filtered and cooled down to -10°C. The impurities remaining in the rum settle to the bottom. Thanks to the cold filtration process, Mount Gay Rum bottles do not form sediment at any storage temperature;
- most operations in the enterprise are performed manually;
- Mount Gay rum does not contain chemical flavorings and flavorings.
Aubrey Ward not only set the standard for Barbadian rum, but also became a figure in local folklore. The honorable gentleman was single all his life, but when he died in 1948 (at the age of 79), more than 50 sons and daughters saw him off on his last journey. All of them Mr. Ward recognized and provided for.
In 1989, the Ward and Hudson families sold a 60% stake in the company to the French group of companies Remy Cointreau, one of the largest producers of premium alcoholic beverages. The French are very careful about the legacy of Aubrey Ward and the traditions of the Mount Gay distillery. To this day, the strict design of the label with the facsimile signature of Aubrey Ward, the date of foundation of the enterprise (1703) and the image of a map of Barbados, on which the capital of the island, Bridgetown, is marked with an asterisk, has remained unchanged. This applies even to those products of the company that were created after the death of Mr. Ward.
In the next 20 years, the production of the drink grew at such a pace that the company began to buy sugar cane in Jamaica and Puerto Rico. It is noteworthy that for the sake of Mount Gay, James Bond himself changed his habits. In the movie Casino Royale, for the first time, the protagonist orders at a bar not a martini with vodka, but Mount Gay rum with soda.
But due to the use of raw materials from other plantations, Mount Gay lost its status as a terroir rum. Mount Gay Sugar Cant Brandy Rum had to be temporarily suspended, the company’s only product that was not made from molasses, but from fermented sugar cane juice.
To ordinary consumers, the drop in quality seemed almost imperceptible, but Remy Cointreau Group CEO Valerie Chapoulo-Floquet considered this state of affairs unacceptable. By her order, in 2016, the company acquired 134 hectares of plantations that once belonged to the Mount Guy estate. Madame Chapoulo-Floquet gave an interview in which she assured the public that Mount Gay would soon become a terroir rum again.
Types of Roma Mount Guy
There are 5 varieties of Mount Gay rum:
- Mount Gay Silver – a colorless young rum with a strength of 40% with a delicate aroma of sugar cane and bananas, which is given freshness by mint-citrus notes;
- Mount Gay Eclipse (“Eclipse”) – rum golden-amber color (40%), a blend of rum spirits of two years of exposure. The spicy taste harmoniously combines the sweetness of vanilla, almond bitterness and undertones of smoke. The drink was named after the appearance in the sky of Halley’s Comet and the solar eclipse that occurred in 1910. Rum was awarded a gold medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition in 2009;
- Mount Gay Black Barrel is a rich amber color rum (40%), first released in 2013 to celebrate the 310th anniversary of the founding of the company. The company’s senior blender, Allen Smith, personally selects the best rums aged in bourbon oak barrels, then they are mixed and poured into charred whiskey barrels. After double aging, the drink acquires the aroma of fruits, generously seasoned with cinnamon, ginger, pepper and other spices. The sweet vanilla-caramel flavor is balanced by the intense bitterness of the burnt oak;
- Mount Gay XO (Extra Old) – premium rum, pure gold color (43%), a blend of 8-15-year-old rum spirits, mainly distilled with copper alambik. The drink has a mild spicy aroma and tart taste with dominant peppery notes, softened by the sweetness of vanilla. The aftertaste is long and warm. Rum has been produced since 1992;
- Mount Gay 1703 Old Cask Selection – premium rum, old amber color (43%), a blend of the best rums aged 10-30 years. Allen Smith made the recipe for this drink for several years and only from the 44th attempt was able to find the ideal proportions. Tones of ripe bananas, candied fruits and oak are mixed with the spicy aroma of the drink. The taste is soft, slightly spicy, with caramel sweetness and a hint of fried bread. The aftertaste is long.
In 2016, Origin sets went on sale, consisting of two variants of Mount Gay rum:
- one drink is a blend of rum spirits distilled with a copper cube. This rum is darker and heavier than the traditional one, has a chocolate-almond flavor and a fruity aftertaste with spicy notes of old oak;
- for the manufacture of other rum, rum spirits are mixed, during the distillation of which a copper column was used. This rum is lighter and lighter than the previous one. Its banana-almond flavor is balanced by a hint of oak. The finish is short, with hints of fruit and honey.