Story by Mark Stevens, photos by Sharon Matthews-Stevens
I am a sailor and I love the Caribbean, so naturally I also love rum. I may not boast the expertise of my fellow sailor, writer and rum drinker David Lyman, but my rum intake over the years proves that my passion for that potent potable is unparalleled.
I’m also a history buff so the chance to visit Grenada’s River Antoine Estate and Distillery is a no-brainer: sample some history, sample some rum.
What’s not to like?
Think voluptuous emerald hills, fields of sugar cane swaying in a samba in time with omnipresent easterlies, the sweet aroma of fermented cane juice and the campfire smell of burning wood wafted by those selfsame breezes.
Then add the historical significance of this place and a rum-making process unique in the Caribbean, and a visit to River Antoine Estate and Distillery, snugged down in the northeast corner of the gorgeous island of Grenada, is a must-do.
Dating back to 1656, the estate was first owned by a French national. He sold the roughly 150-acre spread to an Englishman named Grant around 1763, and the distillery was founded in 1785. This doesn’t make it the oldest Caribbean distillery (Barbados’ Mount Gay dates to 1703), but it’s still one of the most historical operations.
The Organization of American States has recognized River Antoine for a historical and cultural significance that makes it unique across the English-speaking Caribbean.
So what’s so special about this place?
Other long-established distilleries have modernized through the years so that the relationship between production now and the way they used to make rum is almost unrecognizable. Not so in the case of River Antoine, where a visit is an up-close-and-personal experience of a process almost unchanged since the 17th century. Even today no electricity is used. It is both Grenada’s oldest continuously running distillery and the Caribbean’s oldest functioning water-powered distillery.
Cane was originally crushed with the help of oxen or wind power until they “modernized” things around 1840 with the construction of an aqueduct to bring water from the nearby river and the addition of a massive waterwheel to power the gears of the cane crusher.
The process is little changed since then.
At River Antoine you’ll feel lost in time. Even the buildings — concrete blackened by the soot of two hundred years of burning, ballast brick structures — are the stuff of history.
But it’s still mostly about the process.
On a sunny afternoon the water splashing from the massive wheel itself sparkles like diamonds. As that water turns the wheel it hisses and gurgles; the wheel itself groans and creaks like an arthritic octogenarian. A wooden ramp fitted with a conveyor belt rises from the floor inside a building capped with a weather-beaten corrugated tin roof. Workers continuously shovel great bundles of green and gold sugar cane stalks onto the belt.
“The cane is grown on our estate,” says Shermond Lewis, our guide. “It’s hand-cut and carted here.” She points at the conveyor belt, the massive press. “The cane is passed through the press twice to extract as much juice from it as possible.”
At the other end of the press an open-air trough leads to another building. Overhead a sort of train track leads outside. A wooden cart on the track is piled high with crushed cane — called “bagasse” — then offloaded into great piles of the stuff to dry in the sun.
“Once it’s dried,” says Lewis, “we use it to heat the ovens under the boiling house. Then we use the ashes for fertilizer.”
In the boiling house, steam rises like disembodied spirits above great vats laden with cane juice. For several days the liquid is transferred from vat to vat in a cycle of heating and cooling. Periodically a staffer uses a long-handled ladle to remove errant bits of cane.
Next is the fermentation room — great open cisterns, where another cool step in the process takes place. No “fake” yeast, just whatever’s in the air.
Second last step is the distillation. Here employees feed the ovens with locally sourced hardwood as the pot stills make their magic.
Final step? The bottling — done onsite.
The best is yet to come: a sample.
In a separate building two bottles hold court side by side on a simple table. Shermond pours from the first bottle — Rivers Royal Grenadian Rum. I raise my glass.
“A bit strong,” I gasp.
Shermond just grins.
This, incidentally, is the weak stuff: 138 proof — 69 percent alcohol. An early nickname for rum comes to mind: Killdevil.
I take another sip. Killdevil indeed.
But one more bottle awaits my pleasure. It’s decorated with a drawing of a scarlet banner, and the words “Slightly overproof rum.”
World’s biggest understatement. 75 percent alcohol, too potent for export. Writer Matt Pietrek once described Rivers Rum as one “capable of causing the faint-hearted to flee.”
“This one’s a bit smoother,” says Shermond.
I run adjectives through my mind. “Smooth” doesn’t make the list.
But I survive.
As the rum sears my gullet I reflect on the historical and cultural impact of this place, that feeling of having experienced history up close and personal. And I recall my commitment to you, the reader.
“Another ration of grog,” I say.
A ration of grog made the old-fashioned way.
While Mark and his wife, Sharon, call their home cruising ground the waters of Lake Ontario, they sail the Caribbean whenever they get the chance. Check out more of their stories at www.travelwriteclick.com.
