It isn’t very often you stumble upon a 400-year-old rum distillery. Which is what my family did while vacationing in the British Virgin Islands. We were in Tortola for a Moorings Sailing Cruise and we had a day to spend before we boarded. We love to visit distilleries and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to visit Callwood Cane Rum Distillery and see how Arundel Rum is made.
Callwood Cane Rum is an old distillery dating back 400 years. If you think about rum loving pirates sailing in the Caribbean, then they could have been drinking Arundel. A family took over the rum distillery 200 years ago, and they have passed the distillery down over the years to this day.
We arrived at the distillery without warning and were the only customers on site. I was with 3 of my kids and their mother. The distillery is at the end of a long, winding road and I imagine it appears just as it did 200 years ago. The distillery is small and makes about 25 gallons of rum a day during their rum making season. For one dollar, you can taste the rum. That’s quite an amazing bargain. There are 4 rums you can purchase; an unaged white rum, a 4-year rum, a 10-year-rum, and a 10-year blend called, “The Horny Run.” Tasting the “Horny Rum” in front of my kids was a little awkward. The 10-year was the most palate friendly of the group and since I collect bottles whenever I visit a distillery, that was the one I left with.
The Callwood Distillery uses sugar cane grown in a field behind the distillery. It’s a process that the guides walk you through, showing how the sweet sugar can becomes the drink of choice in the British Virgin Islands.
After our walk though the distillery, we drove to the bottom of the road and parked the car to enjoy a dip. You can’t ask for a better day. A rum tasting and then a relaxing day at the beach.
All photos shot on iPhone 13.
Lovely recap. I’ve done all 3 distillery tours in Jamaica so it’s about time I spread my wings to explore the rum factories of the wider Caribbean 🙂 thanks for sharing