Mount Gay has announced the First Edition of Single Estate Series, a new annual release meant to highlight Barbados, the local terroir and its sustainability. Located in St Lucy at the northern tip of Barbados, Mount Gay has called this island home since 1703, celebrating its 320th anniversary this year.
In 2015, Mount Gay acquired 324 acres of the old Mount Gay Estate and, for the first time in centuries, the distillery was a fully vertically integrated operation from cane to bottle. Since then, the team has harvested Estate-grown sugar canes each year until Master Blender Trudiann Branker decided the rum was ready to release.
“The Single Estate Series is as Barbadian as rum could be. Growing Barbadian sugar cane to make Barbadian molasses and bringing every element of the rum production together at our home in St Lucy, the birthplace of rum, was a unique journey,” says Branker. “This release is a first for us, the first estate rum we’ll launch at Mount Gay. Like any first, it has been a huge adventure for the whole team. We learned to farm sugar cane, we learned to mill sugar cane. We created Barbadian molasses that, for the first time, was not a byproduct of making sugar, it was the product focus. The Single Estate Series rum speaks to this quality of molasses, and of Barbados rum making.”
Single Estate Series 23_01 is a blend of 2016 and 2017 harvests. The rum is 100% copper pot still and aged in ex-bourbon casks.
The result is a nose of pear, plum, fresh cut flowers, dried fruits, nutmeg and lemon, according to the distillery. On the palate is pineapple, sea salt, leather, yellow banana and star anise.
The bottle is eco-designed with 70% recycled glass inside a mono-material giftbox with minimal ink to “ensure that it is 100% recyclable,” the company says.
On each label, consumers can find and scan a QR code which leads to an online page where people can follow the journey of the liquid from cane to rum.
Bottled at 55% ABV, Mount Gay Single Estate Series 23_01 is non-chill filtered. The expression is limited to 1,200 bottles available in the U.S., launching November 2023 at a suggested retail price of $400 per 700-ml. bottle in select retail stores.
This follows the release of The Master Blender Collection: The PX Sherry Cask Expression.
