What's Happening: Rum Seminar with Chesterfield Browne

One of the events we were very much looking forward to at the Food & Wine and Rum Festival was the rum seminar with the famous Chesterfield Browne. We were greeted with an array of different coloured rums and a sweet smell as we entered the room. Since we are both from Barbados, we did know the basics of how rum was processed and made, but we did learn so much more about our sought after Mount Gay rum here in Barbados. 1703 was the beginning of rum in Barbados, made from molasses which is a byproduct of sugar cane, we have some of the best rum in the world!

After some details on rum and its history, we got to the good part - tasting it! We tasted 5 different Mount Gay rums: Silver, Eclipse (flagship rum), Extra Old, Black Barrel and the 1703. The silver definitely is a rum which pairs well with fresh fruit juices and makes a banging mojito! Eclipse is the perfect rum for mixing, so sit back and enjoy your rum and coke or like Chesterfield; he opts for rum and ginger ale. The XO (Extra Old) Mount Gay rum can be mixed or sipped on its own, and is like Christmas, warm and full of aromas of prunes and raisins. Black Barrel is one of the newer rums that Mount Gay's master blender has created! The final sip was the 1703, it would be a sin to mix this with anything as it is a blend of 10-30 year old rums and is meant to be enjoyed on its own!

Chesterfield was great and engaged us all with his childhood stories and strong opinions on rum. I do hope next year we can experience a bit of rum and food pairing as that would be very exiting!