Saint James

is one of the oldest brands of rum and one of the most recognized internationally, having served for over a century as the flagship brand for the French Caribbean. It is produced on the island of Martinique, which in the 1640s was the first French Caribbean colony to produce rum. Like many iconic French brands, its nineteenth-century commercial origins have been obscured by a good deal of supposition and legend. See Bénédictine.

In 1882, the Marseilles rum merchant Paulin Lambert (1828–1905), who had been trading in “tafia” (unaged spirit distilled from molasses and skimmings) from Martinique for at least twenty years, decided to launch his own brand, taking that tafia, aging it, and selling it in a proprietary square bottle. “Rhum des Plantations Saint-James,” he called his brand, most likely because in France quality rum was viewed as a preserve of the British. The fact that there were no actual Plantations Saint-James was immaterial; people believed there were, and the brand, an immediate success, became a watchword for tradition and authenticity. In 1890, Lambert bought the large and historic Trouvaillant estate, just outside Saint-Pierre (the principal city of Martinique), where cane had been distilled since at least the 1750s, and renamed it the “Plantations Saint-James,” thus closing the gap between perception and reality.

In 1902, the eruption of Mount Pelée leveled the town of Saint-Pierre and partially destroyed the Saint James distillery. It nonetheless recovered to produce massive quantities of rum during the First World War and subsequently weather the rise of rhum agricole, selling large amounts of each kind. See rhum agricole. The Lambert family sold the business in 1954. In the 1970s, the distillery was moved to Sainte-Marie to centralize production and upgrade distilling operations. The Saint James Rum Museum was built at the new facility, and among the many artifacts it has on display is a conglomeration of twisted and melted Saint James rum bottles from a tavern destroyed during the eruption of Mount Pelée.See also Caribbean and rum.

“Archives Rhum Saint-James: histoire administrative.” Archives nationales d’outre mer: instruments du recherché en ligne. http://anom.archivesnationales.culture.gouv.fr/ark:/61561/nb754cxp (accessed March 11, 2021).

“Article 2988: Concurrence illicite.” Annales de la propriéte industrielle, January, 1885, 156–160.

Historique illustré des Plantations Saint-James. Paris: Jules Lévy, n.d.

Smith, Frederick H. Caribbean Rum: A Social and Economic History. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005.

By: Frederick H. SmithSee Bénédictine.See rhum agricole.See also Caribbean, rum.