Mount Gay is a premier rum of Barbados and its most successful rum export. Founded on a plantation in the northern parish of Saint Lucy, where the earliest record of rum production dates to 1703, Mount Gay claims to be the world’s oldest rum.
Barbados is the likely cradle of Caribbean rum making, and plantations on the island were producing rum from molasses and skimmings, the byproducts of sugar making, as early as the 1640s. Nearly every sugar plantation in Barbados in the seventeenth century had a rum distillery, and in all likelihood rum making at Mount Gay plantation began decades earlier than 1703. While it was not the first plantation to produce rum in Barbados, it can certainly claim to be the oldest estate to continuously produce rum. In the mid-seventeenth century, William Sandiford, an early colonist and planter, purchased and consolidated lands around what was known as Mount Gilboa. In 1801, the estate was renamed Mount Gay in honor of Sir John Gay Alleyne, a wealthy and talented planter and political figure in Barbados who oversaw improvements in rum and sugar making in Barbados during the mid to late eighteenth century.
Mount Gay uses its double-retort pot stills and column stills to produce a variety of (mostly blended) rums, including a filtered white rum called Silver, an Extra Old aged eight to fifteen years, a high-proof rum called Black, and a distinct blend of its oldest and finest reserves called 1703. However, Mount Gay Eclipse is the estate’s staple brand. Named in 1910 for a total eclipse of the sun that occurred that year, Mount Gay Eclipse was refined under the careful watch of Aubrey Fitz-Osbert Ward, who expanded operations and shaped the popularity of Mount Gay rum throughout the twentieth century. Today, Mount Gay rum is a symbol of national pride and identity in Barbados and a big favorite with those involved in sailing the world over, thanks to the brand’s strong support of the sport.
Smith, Frederick H. Caribbean Rum: A Social and Economic History. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005.
By: Frederick H. Smith