I visited Hampden Estate Distillery while on vacation in Jamaica last weekend (and many thanks to @Vernon for helping get everything set up). I made a post about the tour on a rum forum a few days ago with the plan to update it for the Big Time Bud Light Pumped™ Blue Lot audience instead of the rum snob audience, but uh... I'm lazy, and I don't feel like doing it. So I'll just describe Hampden Estate and then copy/paste the rest. First, the pictures:
Hampden Estate is pretty much the Mecca for old school Jamaican run. Jamaican rum is known for its funk (also known as hogo) and is produced in double retort pot stills. And as far as Hampden Estate is concerned, it's probably the George Clinton of the 6 Jamaican distilleries- the funkiest of the bunch. It opened as a sugar plantation in the mid 1700s, and they started distilling rum in the late 1700s. For most of its history it was only owned by two separate families. It hit financial distress in the early 2000s, so the government of Jamaica took it over for a few years before selling it to the Hussey family, who ultimately became the 4th set of owners. The Husseys owned several businesses in Jamaica but really knew nothing about rum. Fortunately for rum aficionados, they've done it right- modernizing operations and making the distillery profitable while keeping intact the things that make Hampden special.
If you look at the rums I bought, Rum Fire is basically the stuff Jamaicans actually drink- unaged, potstill, overproof Jamaican rum. The most common "cocktail" in Jamaica is Wray & Ting. That's Wray & Nephew rum (same style from Appleton Estate Distillery) mixed with Ting grapefruit soda. The Great House 2023 is a boutique release and very difficult to find sold outside of the distillery itself. The New Beginnings is only sold at the distillery. It was made last year in celebration of the marriage of one of the Hussey family members who works at the distillery. Only 700 bottles were made, and presumably many of those were gifted at the wedding. To put this in perspective for the bourbon drinkers on here, imagine you took a tour of Buffalo Trace Distillery. After that, they offered you the chance to pay retail price for a special release of Pappy that's not sold anywhere else. That's about how I felt getting that bottle.
Anyhow, copy/paste time:
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I visited Hampden Estate Distillery last week with my wife while we were on vacation in Montego Bay. This will probably be better if I just use bullet points than if I attempt a narrative:
Hampden Estate is pretty much the Mecca for old school Jamaican run. Jamaican rum is known for its funk (also known as hogo) and is produced in double retort pot stills. And as far as Hampden Estate is concerned, it's probably the George Clinton of the 6 Jamaican distilleries- the funkiest of the bunch. It opened as a sugar plantation in the mid 1700s, and they started distilling rum in the late 1700s. For most of its history it was only owned by two separate families. It hit financial distress in the early 2000s, so the government of Jamaica took it over for a few years before selling it to the Hussey family, who ultimately became the 4th set of owners. The Husseys owned several businesses in Jamaica but really knew nothing about rum. Fortunately for rum aficionados, they've done it right- modernizing operations and making the distillery profitable while keeping intact the things that make Hampden special.
If you look at the rums I bought, Rum Fire is basically the stuff Jamaicans actually drink- unaged, potstill, overproof Jamaican rum. The most common "cocktail" in Jamaica is Wray & Ting. That's Wray & Nephew rum (same style from Appleton Estate Distillery) mixed with Ting grapefruit soda. The Great House 2023 is a boutique release and very difficult to find sold outside of the distillery itself. The New Beginnings is only sold at the distillery. It was made last year in celebration of the marriage of one of the Hussey family members who works at the distillery. Only 700 bottles were made, and presumably many of those were gifted at the wedding. To put this in perspective for the bourbon drinkers on here, imagine you took a tour of Buffalo Trace Distillery. After that, they offered you the chance to pay retail price for a special release of Pappy that's not sold anywhere else. That's about how I felt getting that bottle.
Anyhow, copy/paste time:
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I visited Hampden Estate Distillery last week with my wife while we were on vacation in Montego Bay. This will probably be better if I just use bullet points than if I attempt a narrative:
- I totally recommend the tour for anyone visiting Jamaica who's interested in rum. I'm guessing 95% of the tour guests are people visiting Jamaica on a cruise or staying at all-inclusive resorts and see a rum distillery in the excursion brochure. The guides cater the experience to those people appropriately, but if you speak up here and there and let them know you're actually in to rum, they will absolutely talk to you on the level and make it far more interesting.
- The distillery is an interesting contrast to Maggie's Farm in Pittsburgh, which I visited a month ago. I basically got see a rum distillery set up 2 years ago vs one set up 200 years ago. In reality, it isn't all that different.
- It was interesting to me that nobody we talked to outside of the tour had heard of Hampden Estate. Most of the workers at the resort asking if we had anything planned assumed that when we said "Hampden Estate" that there was an accent issue or some sort of confusion with "Appleton Estate". I teased my wife when a bartender said she hadn't heard of it and told her, "That's about the fifth person who hasn't heard of it- at what point does it stop being a surprise?" What I didn't realize before the trip was that Hampden hadn't marketed any of their rum under their own name until very recently with the new ownership.
- The drive from Montego Bay to Hampden was pretty rough. It's only 20 miles but took about an hour- just imagine a narrow, windy country road filled with potholes everywhere. We didn't get a mile down the road before encountering a police checkpoint, where they were apparently checking credentials of some sort for tour operators leaving the local resorts. Our driver had to get out and have a good ten minute talk before we could get back on the road. Our driver was really good- the conversation was inevitably more interesting when we got him off script (which was most of the time). It seemed like he was friends with just about everyone at Hampden once we got there.
- The Hampden Estate property itself is beautiful. There are several peacocks on the property, which were brought in by the current owners. They are entertaining birds. When my wife and I ate lunch (jerk chicken and some sort of sweet, fried dough), they slowly surrounded us- kind of like a scene from sort of dystopian horror film. It was amusing.
- When you arrive for the tour, everyone gets some sort of red punch that shows off the Rum Fire (unaged overproof) well.
- We had two tour guides- Sheena, who had only been there a month and was still training, and Steve, who was more experienced. They were both great- the banter between the two where Sheena would tell Steve to back off because he was making her nervous always brought out laughs. She handled most everything but let him speak to more of the technical details with regard to distillation (see this short youtube video for an amusing example of that).
- One of the most interesting thing about the tour was the change in smells. It seemed like every 10 yards or so the guide would have us stop and sniff the air to see how things changed depending on what was going on at that particular location.
- I believe they had five pot stills. The oldest still looked like it was about held together with duct tape, bubble gum, and a few silent prayers each morning. The guide said that they would absolutely never get rid of that thing. For a rum fan, it was beautiful sight.
- The molasses tank was absolutely enormous. It was filled to 85,000 as you can see in the picture, but I'm blanking as to whether that was gallons or liters. They said they source much of it from Long Pond.
- The housing with fermentation tanks was the only area where we were not allowed to take pictures. They said it was an old rule related to safety due to the alcohol vapors in the air.
- They did have some barrels aging in the main distillery building, and they were safely locked away.
- You have to wear a hard hat on the tour, mainly as protection from hitting your head on low overhangs. The guide mentioned that when it was built the average height of a Jamaican man was around 5'2", and human beings have obviously sprouted since those days.
- The most fun part for me was inevitably the tasting at the end of the tour. First on the list was Rum Fire- I had never tried it before but knew it was basically the equivalent to Wray & Nephew Overproof. It was exactly what I expected. My mistake, though, was not warning my wife about what to expect from an unaged Jamaican Overproof rum. She is not into tasting liquor at all, and her reaction was... well, probably what you're imagining... ha. The guide saw the look on her face and poured a little grapefruit juice into her snifter glass with the remaining rum. She was a much happier camper after that.
- They did a little demonstration (same video as above) where they poured the Rum Fire on a rock and show how it lit/burned. The story was that ages ago before they had fancy equipment (referencing a $4,000 meter of sorts on the other side of the room), they could determine the ABV and other information about the rum based on the way it burned.
- The next rum we tasted was a 4 year aged rum (I believe, the HLCF Classic. Not sure what to say other than it was a very nice rum. I wasn't blown away or anything, but I certainly enjoyed it. Now as a disclaimer, I'm not an experienced taster like many people in this subreddit. I got into tiki a few years ago, and that's inevitably a gateway to the rum itself. Whether it's rum, beer, coffee, or whatever, I haven't trained my nose/palate to the point where I can pick out individual scents or flavors. I pretty much just give rum a very good sniff (through nose and mouth), take a sip, and slowly enjoy it. I just kind of like stuff or not, without any great ability to explain the finer points as to why.
- I believe those two rums are the only ones they typically give you taste of on the tour.
- At some point I had mentioned to Steve that I came across a bottle of Pagos a couple weeks ago and absolutely loved it. He was impressed and mentioned that he only knew one other person who had a bottle. That was one of the managers at the distillery, and he had to pick his up when visiting Prague.
- I had also mentioned to the guide that I can't find Hampden rum at all where I live (West Virginia), so I have to buy it when I travel. He called the manager over, who then gave me the contact info for someone with Velier that's in charge of distribution in the US. I'm definitely not the go-getter sort who's going to try to get to know the people at my local liquor store , put them in touch with a distributor, and badger all parties involved until I can actually buy it locally, but I certainly appreciate the gesture.
- Soon after Steve had a bit of an excited look on his face and said he'd pull out something from the "manager's stash" for me to try. He poured a small sip into the snifter glass, and I don't know what to say other than it was so-****ing-good. Based on just a sip, this was undoubtedly one of the best rums I've tasted. Which rum was it? Well, here's where I'm kicking myself. The rum had a nice gold color, so it was clearly aged. The bottle had no retail label. It did have a piece of white tape with what I assumed was the marque written on it in marker. Not being intimately familiar with the marques, I mentally noted that it was 4 letters and started with A. When I got back to my hotel, I decided to look up a little more info on it. Those people more familiar with Hampden than I am are probably aware that they don't actually have any marques that start with the letter A. Did I misread the handwriting? Was it shorthand for the actual name of the rum? I have no way of knowing for sure, and I was too distracted by other conversation to ask at the time. Ugh.
- The guide pulled out one last bottle. This one had a small white label with HIGH ESTER printed on it. He said the ester count for that was 3200 (I did remember from my "studying" that 1600 was the max allowed for Jamaican rum). I asked, "Can you even drink that?!?" and he laughed. Poured a small sip for me to try, and well... that was an experience. Whatever it was, it was powerful. That's about the only way I can describe it. Then then poured a little water in the glass so I could get the contrast in taste/smell. It was certainly much more palatable. It really is interesting to see how adding a little water to any rum can affect the overall experience.
- I don't know whether I got those extra tastes because I was one of the odd people on tour who actually knew a little about rum, or because he could sense I was about to head to the gift shop with a twinkle in my eye, but either way- I appreciate the experience.
- I'd previously read a post on the subreddit that mentioned the stock at the gift shop could be hit or miss, so I was definitely excited that it was a hit for me. I picked up bottles of New Beginnings, Great House 2023, the HLCF Classic, two bottles of Rum Fire (one for my neighbor who kindly tended to our cats while we were gone), and a few snifter glasses. That goes with the Pagos and the Hampden 8 I already have at home.
- I stopped at the rum store at my resort a few days later to see if they had anything particularly interesting that was hard to find back home. It was sponsored by Appleton but had several other Jamaican rums as well (also El Dorado). I picked up a bottle that said Appleton Decades (1962-2022) and thought to myself... a 60 year old rum? That can't be right, can it? I didn't see a price tag, so I asked the cashier how much it cost. "Four thousand dollars." I smiled and gently set it back on the shelf. The cashier laughed. I ended up getting a bottle of Worthy Park Single Estate Reserve.
- For anyone visiting Montego Bay, note that there is a large duty free store at the airport that has a great selection of pretty much every Jamaican rum brand I've heard of. I was tempted by a bottle of Monymusk, but I decided I didn't want the hassle of carrying another box onto the plane and then getting it through security again at my layover at Dulles.
- I was amused when the customs agent at Dulles asked if we had anything to declare, and I said six bottles of rum. She laughed and said, "Oh, where the party at? Can I come?" and waved us on through.
- Bonus: the first drink I ordered with dinner at my resort was a plain daiquiri, straight up. This is what I received. I immediately tempered my cocktail expectations for the rest of the trip and embraced the pretty/fruity beach stuff. The bars did all stock Appleton 12, at least.
