After Hurricane Melissa hit Jamaica last October, rum lovers anxiously awaited news from the island’s six distilleries. Hampden Estate, in the parish of Trelawney to the north, was right in the hurricane’s path, and the furious winds deprived its historic buildings of their roofs and the palm trees of their fronds. Then came more alarming rumours: the dunder pits had overflowed.
Dunder pit? This is the one of the most distinctive features of traditional Jamaican rum, a style exemplified by Hampden, which has been in operation since 1753. You typically make rum by fermenting molasses and/or sugar cane juice into an alcoholic “wash”, then distil that into a potent liquor, but local distillers developed several strategies to oomph up the flavour. Dunder is the leftover liquid from the still, and it’s lobbed into the next fermentation for its funky notes, a bit like a sourdough starter. At Hampden, they also use muck, an outrageously smelly, semi-sentient soup containing countless billions of yeast bacteria, plus various bits of decomposing, well, stuff. I’m not sure what would happen if you fell in: possibly die, or perhaps be granted infinite powers, Obelix-style. Then there’s the fermentation process itself: most distilleries use generic industrial yeasts, which typically convert sugars to alcohol over a couple of days, but at Hampden they harness wild yeasts, which can take weeks. Incidentally, Andrew Hussey, Hampden’s owner, has reported that production is now safe, though the communities who live and work around the distillery remain badly affected.
We’ve heard a lot about the miraculous powers of fermented foods such as kimchi and kefir, and I’m not going to pretend that Jamaican rum will do anything for your microbiome, but these tiny universes of microbes do have miraculous effects on flavour, giving Jamaican rum its distinctive, bassy funk, or hogo. Hampden’s signature 1753 blend, for instance, has rich tropical fruit, deep baking aromas, nail varnish, glue, Marmite, leather, spice, animal spirits. Try it neat or in a Kingston negroni, for which it’s subbed in for the usual gin.
Rum has boomed in recent years, and really why wouldn’t it? It’s approachable and mixable, less up itself than scotch or cognac, and has the most interesting history, too. Alas, however, it is more “spiced rum” that has gained favour with British drinkers – a generic, sweetened spirit mixed with aggressive vanilla, much of it fit only for knocking back pre-amputation. Hampden however, exemplifies a welcome counter-trend in the Caribbean for distilleries to lean on their own distinctive rum-making traditions and produce liquids that are as much an expression of place as wine is. That hasn’t always been a given, thanks to the vagaries of colonialism and its illegitimate heir, capitalism.
Jamaica is synonymous with rum, but for decades most of its rum was sold in bulk to exporters and blended and aged in Europe. However, since it gained a Geographical Indication for rum in 2016, local producers have been working hard to make Jamaican rum Jamaican again. The oldest surviving distillery, Appleton Estate (1749!) was the first to employ a Jamaican female master blender, the redoubtable Joy Spence, and now ages all of its rums on the island, which concentrates those tropical flavours. Then there is Worthy Park in the south, where they have revived sugar cane production to make a rum that is truly an expression of its locale. You could equally do far worse than Wray & Nephew, the iconic overproof white rum that is far and away the most popular on the island itself, and makes an evil daiquiri; 90% of Jamaicans cannot be wrong.
Four Jamaican classics
Hampden Estate 1753 £57.25 (700ml; on offer) The Whisky Exchange, 46%. An outrageous liquid: like tropical fruit, spice and kerosene put through a subwoofer. Shines through just about any mixer.
Appleton 8-Year Old Reserve Blend £28 (700ml) Majestic, 43%. One of the best-value spirits around. Banana, apricot, toffee, funk. Great in a rum old fashioned.
Worthy Park Single Estate Reserve £46.95 (700ml) Master of Malt, 45%. Unlike most rum producers, Worthy Park grows its own sugar cane. This is a lovely rum, rich in mango, butter and tobacco.
Wray & Nephew Overproof £31 (700ml) Tesco, 63%. A true Jamaican icon, and far better than many more revered spirits. Mix with grapefruit soda. A little goes a long way.
