History of Rum

Jamaica's Worthy Park, located in a lush green area sixty kilometres from the capital city of Kingston, holds the incredible record of being the world's oldest working distillery. It was in fact in 1670 that the estate was entrusted to British Lieutenant Francis Price, who started sugar and molasses rum production on a 3,600-hectare summer.

Sugar production has never stopped and in 340 years has been run by just three families, while the distillation of rum from molasses ceased for decades in the second half of the 20th century, only to resume in 2005 under the management of Gordon Clarke. Today Worthy Park, after more than 15 years in business, is one of the most ambitious distilleries in the Caribbean, thanks to a successful blend of tradition and innovation, a dynamism that has also led to the creation of the successful Rum Bar brand, an amalgamation of some of the distillery's historic marks.

How does a great Jamaican rum originate?

It all starts with the more than 1600 hectares of Lluidas Vale, where more than 20 varieties of sugar cane grow. Eighty per cent is harvested by hand, the best method because it preserves the cane intact, while the remaining 20 per cent is harvested by mechanical means. On the one hand, the fresh cane juice is used to make sugar, and on the other, the molasses that remain after crystallisation, which are sent to the distillery through a pipeline that runs underground from the sugar factory to become rum. The molasses resulting from the production of plantations in the Worthy Park galaxy cover up to 20% of the distillery's needs.

Fermentation then takes place in large closed stainless steel vats, lasting 30 hours thanks to the work of a selected dry yeast and a yeast isolated on the sugar cane of the Worthy Park Estate. Distillation takes place in the unique Forsyths double retort pot still, which was installed in 2005 at the re-opening and from which an 85 proof, high ester rum emerges.