We went for an all day tour with Cutty, one of the local taxi driver. This distillery is powered by the original water wheel as shown in the gallery. The rum is distilled from sugar cane grown local. The water wheel drives the belts feeding the cane as well as the shredder and grinder. The dilute sugar solution from the cane is then boiled in a series of open vats that are heated by the husk shredded off the cane. The concentrated sugar solution is then mixed with molasses and water, fed into copper stills that are heated by wood fires as it was originally done.
The final product, the rum, contains 70% to up to 85% alcohol, incredibly strong to taste but with no flavour. This rum is only sold on Grenada as the demand is very high due to the high alcohol content, rum sold for export has to be under 70%. Rum is a very popular drink in the Caribbean and Grenada has 2 more distilleries. See the gallery for more pictures of the distillery.