Mount Gay Distillery in Barbados

[txcrsr]

The Royal Caribbean website lists several excursions that include rum distillery tours. Only the "Barbados Finest Blends" tour specifically states that it features the Mount Gay Distillery. Others, such as "A Flavor of Barbados" and "Best of Barbados & Heritage Rum Distillery", state that the tour goes to "the Rum Factory & Heritage Park, which is about 350 years old". I am confused. Do these all refer to the Mount Gay Distillery? Any advice? Thanks in advance.

[flips7]

There are many different distileries on Barbados. I would guess that only the one that says mount Gay actually goes there, however the other distileries can be very good. We actaully went to one that was very good it was somewhere in the middle of the island the names escapes me.

 

Flips

[robtulipe]

The other major rum distillery on Barbados is the West Indes Rum Distillery which makes Cockspur and Malibu and was started in 1893. It is located in St.Michaels Parish. Here the web site http://www.westindiesrum.com .

The Mount Gay is the one over 300 years old. http://www.mountgayrum.com/

More Barbados rum distillery info at http://www.barbados.org/distill.htm

[RBOrrell]

The Royal Caribbean website lists several excursions that include rum distillery tours. Only the "Barbados Finest Blends" tour specifically states that it features the Mount Gay Distillery. Others, such as "A Flavor of Barbados" and "Best of Barbados & Heritage Rum Distillery", state that the tour goes to "the Rum Factory & Heritage Park, which is about 350 years old". I am confused. Do these all refer to the Mount Gay Distillery? Any advice? Thanks in advance.

 

In November 2005 I did a tour that went to Banks Brewery first and then to the Mount Gay Distillery.

 

The trip to Banks was about 30 minutes through downtown. The tour inside the Banks brewery lasted about 45 minutes (it is not a big brewery) but the hospitality later was amazing. I was expecting a sample. Banks uses 12 oz platic bottles (and draft). It was a free-for-all. Take as many as you like to drink now or drink later. They even had shopping bags to put them in.

 

The trip to Mount Gay after that took another 20 or 30 minutes. When you got off the bus, they greeted you with a rum punch. You did the tour of the distillery - again short 30 minutes maybe, and it ended at a bar. Here you were given a lesson in tasting rum (straight up). There were 3 different rums in the lesson. After that, you proceded to the shop / bar where you could buy more of their product.

 

For the price of the tour, it was a pretty good deal. It was a nice non-eco non-exursion tour.

[MrsFops&FopsC5]

We too did the Banks Brewery & Mount Gay tour on Princess in November. Banks has some wonderful tasting beers and nonalcoholic beverages to try. The Lemonade flavored beer was terrific, just a hint of lemonade and tasted so good ice cold. Yes, you could try as much as you wanted, free.

 

The best part....Bottled Water $2.00... There is actually a sign at the bar that they charge for bottled water. Moral of the story...drink their products!!!

 

Have fun.

[rmcg1975]

We spent a week in Barbados in Dec 2005 and one of the things we did was go on the Mt Gay Rum Distillery tour. Pretty cool I must say, although I felt a bit jipped in the bottling aspect of it all.. but overall it was very educational. I loved learning about the different Rums and the regatta..see if you can find your state listed on the wall! You'll never look at a "red hat" the same again.

 

If you like cognac, do yourself a favor and buy the Sugarcane Brandy. It is wonderful..you CAN get it here in the states but it is marketed under a different name and the alchol content isn't nearly as high.

 

Upon arrivel the complimentary Rum Punch is quite tasty and just what you'll need after the ride to the distillery which is in a very industrial section of the island.

 

See if you can do the tour that includes touring the ENTIRE island..one day we did an Island tour and I was just facinated on the different aspects of the culture and the island. Bathsheba is pretty amazing.. you don't really realize how far out you are sitting on a lump of coral until you read the sign that tells you, the nearest landmass is AFRICA! That put it in perspective to me. Also the Green Monkeys in the Nature Preserve were just cool. They are so beautiful to watch when they fly over your heads in the canopy. They got close enough to me where if I was brave enopugh I could reach out and touch them.. however, I chose to be wise and kept my hands on my camera because they WILL take those things and hold them for ransom.

 

If you like to snorkel, the book something on the Tiami or Cool Runnings. Worth the cost. they will take you to the western side of the island to an underwater sanctuary..it was so beautiful. And the meal you get on the boat on the way back is WONDERFUL! Very high quality food and drink. Flying Fish was on the menu, as it should be..and it is very tasty and delicate.. almost like a trout if I had to make a comparison. They had rum punch, wine and Banks beer. We liked it so much we did it twice that week!

 

Their yellow hot sauce is great too.. we decided that when ours is done we'll need to go back to get more..and it seems like we are almost ready!

[txcrsr]

Thank you all for your advice, recommendations, and information. This will help me make a decision.