Mount Gay Distillery and Visitor Center
Mount Gay Distillery and Visitor Center (Spring Garden Highway, Bridgetown, St. Michael Parish) – drinkers all over are in some way familiar with Mount Gay brand rum. Here is the facility where it’s made. On site, there are regular 45-minute tours (from 9 am to 3:45 pm, from Monday to Friday). Along with witnessing the rum-making process, visitors get free tastings of the rum. A souvenir boutique is close by, for those who want to take some bottles back home. Basic tour costs US$10 per person (there are also two extended tours: the “Cocktail Tour” – for US$50 (no children allowed); and the “Bajan Buffet Lunch Tour”, which includes lunch on the verandah after the basic tour – for US$62 / children half-price). The expanded tour requires a reservation, but the basic tour can accommodate walk-in visitors.
Visitors will learn, among other things, that rum has been produced in Barbados since the 1640s (and expanded at one time to the point where locally-produced rum was called “Barbados water” in London, along with it becoming a staple on British war ships). Call Mount Gay’s Visitor Center for more info: (246) 425-8757. Mount Gay’s tour web page is: www.mountgayrum.com/pub/n/docs/Mount_Gay_Visitors_Centre.pdf