Business Barbados - 2023 Edition

They would also refuse to wholly give up Barbados sugar cane. From 1971, the Barbados sugar industry has been in decline. From a high of over 200,000 tonnes in the mid-60s, production of raw sugar had fallen to 50,000 tonnes in 1992. Less sugar means less molasses and the rum distillers faced a scenario where there was not enough local molasses output to meet rum production demand. Immediate problems require immediate solutions, and, for the first time, the island imported molasses to meet demand. Fortunately, Barbados cane varieties which pervade the region are milled using the same process and equipment as our local mills. Having long broken the link between estate and distillery, molasses from central factories had become somewhat of a homogenous input, and Barbados distillers seamlessly integrated regional molasses into local rum making. The upside to any crisis is the opportunity - perhaps the requirement - to innovate. But in this precious local artisanal craft, the opportunity was to return to our roots. The crisis in the sugar industry continues with sugar output falling to just 5,000 tonnes in 2022. Faced with the thought that the famous rum making provenance of Barbados may cease to grow sugar cane, the rum distillers took matters into their own hands. When Larry Warren returned St Nicholas Abbey to rum making again in 2006, he did so by milling the cane grown on the estate into sugar syrup from which their rum is distilled. Fresh juice has a short shelf-life and boiling to syrup to preserve it is an ancient practice of the small distiller. It is still done today in Haiti. For one distiller, the link between estate and rum was restored, and Barbados returned to making rum direct from sugar cane instead of solely from molasses. Motivated by a desire to return the link between Mount Gay rum and the Mount Gay sugar estate, in 2015 the Remy Cointreau owned distillery acquired the 331-acre estate that surrounded the distillery, reuniting the historical sugar cane estate with its original distillery. Group CEO Valérie Chapoulaud-Floquet explained: “We saw this unique opportunity as a sign to pursue our goal to create a true luxury rum brand. Here in Barbados, we now gather together all the elements to foster the legacy of Mount Gay Distilleries: authenticity, history and terroir, with a single-estate rum, a genuine Barbados historical ‘chateau’.” After initially subcontracting the local Portvale mill to process their estate cane, in 2022 Mount Gay commissioned a new sugar factory, the first to be built on the Island since 1980, to mill its estate grown cane to molasses and sugar - the former to make their rum, the latter as by product. A new paradigm for Barbados sugar cane. In 2016 at Foursquare, motivated to preserve Barbados as a sugar cane growing country, to restore the link between a sugar estate and its rum, and finally to once again blur the lines between molasses and cane juice rums as it was in the past, we began taking syrup from the mill at St Nicholas Abbey. In 2018, we commissioned our own mill and milled cane from nearby Ashbury Plantation. In 2020 we added a second mill and in 2021 we acquired 20 acres of cane surrounding the Foursquare distillery for the planting of specialist varieties more suited for the making of rum than raw sugar. Today, all rum from Foursquare is made by blending rums from molasses, both local and imported, and locally milled fresh cane juice. The distillers have demonstrated the ability to turn a local agricultural output into high value-added finished products with global renown. The contrast with the bulk raw sugar industry is a lesson for Government that the Island can and must move away from providing commodity output for value-added in the developed world. Barbados Rum has not merely returned to its roots, but set in place practices to preserve, enhance and protect the provenance of Barbados Rum. Bottling rum at Foursquare BUSINESS BARBADOS 2023 96