St Lucia Distillers
The competitors-turned-business partners who saved rum production in Saint Lucia
The partnership that built a global rum company
An innocuous meeting of minds can give rise to great things. If John, George, Paul and Ringo hadn’t started making music together, the ‘Britpop’ movement may not have reached such global prominence. If Steve Jobs hadn’t returned to Apple in the 1990s and worked with designers to revolutionise its product line, one of the world’s most famous brands may have faded into obscurity.
Similarly (albeit on a smaller scale), when businessmen Denis Barnard and John Van Geest joined forces in 1972 to strengthen their Caribbean spirits companies, they forged a new future for rum in Saint Lucia.
Like many other West Indian islands, sugar was the main crop in Saint Lucia; the estates that produced it often supported an on-site distillery to deal with a waste product from the process, molasses, which was fermented and distilled to make rum. However, a decline in the island’s sugar trade meant that by the 1950s, only two distilleries remained: the
Dennery Distillery, on an estate owned by the Barnard family, and the Geest-owned distillery at Roseau.
Seeing the direction of travel for their industry, the heads of these respective estates, Denis Barnard and John Van Geest, decided to merge their distilleries for greater efficiency and economies of scale – especially since they were now having to import their main raw material, molasses. This joint venture took a new name, St Lucia Distillers Ltd, and was based at the Geest distillery site, which remains the company’s home today. This arrangement continued until 1993 when Dennery bought out Geest; the company was subsequently sold to GBH in 2016.
Located in the Roseau Valley, the most abundant element around the distillery is water: from the sea, a mile to the west, and the high water table to its position in the island’s rain belt and downriver from a major dam on the Roseau river, which makes the valley more humid. As well as being an advantageous
position for crop cultivation and international shipping, the high humidity and coastal air create a favourable environment for ageing which St Lucia Distillers says lends its rums oakiness, spice and a hint of salinity.
Pierrick Barancourt of spirits marketer Spiribam, whose portfolio includes St Lucia Distillers, said, “The ethos of the company is to be inclusive and to embrace every opportunity for improvement and new ventures, which translates into our rums. While the traditional methods of rum making from the two original distilleries continue to this day, we are always looking to innovate.” This ethos led St Lucia Distillers to invest in pot stills, experiment with different barrels for ageing include ex-wine and port casks, and plant sugarcane to start producing rum from sugarcane juice as well as molasses.
The distillery produces three main brands, available globally from Europe to China. Its best known internationally is Chairman’s Reserve; launched in 1999, its range runs the gamut of sipping and mixing rums from its Master’s Selections to its Original and Spiced expressions. Super-premium brand Admiral Rodney comprises 100-per-cent column still rums designed for sipping, while the Bounty range of mixing rums has six core expressions including spiced, coconut and lime.
St Lucia Distillers imports its molasses from sugar-producing countries in the Caribbean and Central America. It receives two deliveries a year – each 2,000-2,500 tonnes – via a hose from a tanker moored in the Roseau bay.
Its six storage tanks hold enough molasses for around 13 months’ production. At the distillery, molasses is diluted with water from the Roseau river, enriched with selected yeasts and fermented for 36 to 40 hours. The resulting wash (averaging 7% ABV) is distilled on one of its three copper pot stills or its twocolumn Coffey still.
Three distillates are collected from the Coffey still at between 93% and 95% ABV. Two are aged in ex-Bourbon barrels and used to blend spirit for Admiral Rodney, Bounty and Chairman’s Reserve; the least aromatic distillate is used to produce Denros Strong Rum, St Lucia’s strongest bottled rum at 80% ABV. The more flavoursome distillates collected from its John Dore double retort and Vendome copper pot stills, characterised by notes of coconut, brown sugar, apple and citrus, are used in its heavier flavoured rums.
In its spirits, St Lucia Distillers pays homage to the island’s rum-producing past while adapting this traditional craft to suit diverse modern tastes. Whether it’s a glass of HMS AR Royal Oak to sip and savour, or a cocktail mixed with Bounty Dark, the ‘spirit of Saint Lucia’ is alive and well – thanks to the savvy duo of Denis Barnard and John Van Geest.