Rum in the heart | The Press

Of course, there are fine sandy beaches, the turquoise of the sea and the coconut trees. But if you’re looking for the heart of Barbados, it’s a safe bet that it will have a little taste of rum.

The former British colony is the mother island of rum. It was here that, for the first time, sugar cane molasses, yeast and water were mixed to make a divine amber drink.

It is also in Barbados that the oldest rum distillery still operating on the planet is located, Mount Gay.

Even today, life in Barbados is punctuated with small and large praises of rum. All you need to do is land in one of the rum shops from the island. An unofficial count says that there are more than 1,500 for a population of some 296,000 inhabitants. This is where, at any time of the day (or almost), men gather (the masculine is essential here) to chat around a bottle purchased on site. Politics, the local economy, cricket (which serves as the national sport) or women: all subjects are good, as long as there is rum to grease the conversations.

Moreover, “rum is not a drink, it’s an experience” many of these drinkers like to repeat.

It will come as no surprise to find a particularly lively one at the end of the small Westbury Street, renamed Rihanna Drive in honor of the pop singer from the island. It is in a pretty little green house in the western suburbs of Bridgestone that the interpreter of Diamonds grew up. She flew her kite in the cemetery next door. And in 2017 she joined the pantheon of 11 heroes of the Barbadian nation, alongside the father of independence (which occurred in 1966), Errol Walton Barrow!

Today, the green house is a place of pilgrimage for Rihanna admirers. During her rare visits to the island, the star now stays in the house she had built for her mother in the heart of the country.

But at the end of Rihanna Drive, drinkers continue to invent, between two sips, family ties with the country star. Or they rehash stories of boats deliberately sunk by their crews, the sailors having fallen in love with the women of Barbados… and its rum, of course.

To let go of the soaked legends and get closer to the truth, you have to head to one of the four rum distilleries on the island. Mount Gay is undoubtedly the best known. The visit is very informative, but its industrial installations lack charm.

We much preferred the more artisanal one at St. Nicholas Abbey. In this sugar cane plantation dating from 1658 there are splendid buildings, including a very well preserved Jacobean style manor. A rarity.

It is possible to visit the manor, in particular to discover that one of the ancestors of the actor Benedict Cumberbatch, Abraham Cumberbatch, had close links with the property. His austere portrait hanging in the living room bears witness to this.

The Cumberbatch family was very active in the slave trade in Barbados during the 17th century.^e and XVIII^e centuries, to the point where some asked, in January 2023, that the interpreter of Sherlock pays out of his own pocket to repair the mistakes of his predecessors. The affair has since died a beautiful death.

In this distillery-museum, you can especially see the workers busy loading the sugar cane into a steam-activated press to extract the precious juice or removing the residue with a wooden rake. Here, even the labels are applied by hand. And the rum tasting which ends the visit does not disappoint!

The island of gentle reliefs

Unlike its Caribbean neighbors, the island of Barbados has no volcanoes. No major mountain has broken the gentle relief of the landscape and no waterfall attracts tourists wishing to take a dip in the fresh water.

How then can we explain that Barbados is one of the most touristy islands in the region? The fine sandy beaches, which take on a pinkish tint under the setting sun, have a lot to do with it. All are public.

The concept of a private beach does not exist here, and tourists from large hotels share their patch of sand with local families or visitors who go jogging, ignoring borders.

On the West Coast, which lies in the Caribbean Sea, the water is calm and gently lapping the sandy beaches. On the east coast, however, the Atlantic Ocean crashes furiously against the numerous reefs. Bathers give way here to surfers. The more dramatic landscape also delights photographers.

In the heart of the island, sugar cane fields sway in the wind, awaiting the next harvest. Several private gardens have also flourished over the years, attracting visitors with their hibiscus, bromeliads and begonias.

In the private park of Coco Hill Forest, employees are working to restore its rights to nature, damaged in particular by the monkeys brought from Africa by boat several centuries ago. The forest benefits from 3.5 km of hiking trails where you can observe ferns, palm trees, medicinal plants and fruit trees.

A true green oasis, perfect for taking a forest bath, just to cleanse your head before the next glass of rum.

Travel expenses for this report were paid by The Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc., which had no control over this article.