Foursquare

Foursquare’s history dates back to 1640 when it was established as a plantation in St. Philip Parish that produced muscovado sugar. In 1737 a distillery was installed, one of one hundred sixty eight rum distilleries on the island of Barbados in 1856. When a tax per still, was established by the government of Barbados and the distilleries were forced to sell their product in bulk and banned from selling it directly to the consumer, many ceased to operate including the Foursquare distillery which closed down in 1867 and continued to operate solely as a sugar manufacturer until 1987.

Following the ban on distilleries selling directly to consumers, many merchants in Bridgetown began blending and bottling rum for commercial sale. One of these was Reginald Leon Seale who established R. L. Seale & Co. Ltd. in 1926. Seal purchased unaged rum from the West Indies Rum Refinery Ltd. he blended and bottled. The rum making tradition was carried on by Richard’s grandson David Seale who over time acquired several other brands such as Doorly's, Old Brigand and unaged white rum E.S.A. Field as well as John D. Taylor's Velvet Falernum.

In 1995 David acquired the closed Foursquare sugar factory, built a modern distillery on the site and began distilling operations in 1996. Some of the original buildings of the sugar factory were restored and preserved and are now home the the modern Foursquare Distillery and Heritage Park, an open-air museum featuring antique rum manufacturing equipment and the Folk Museum, which showcases the role that rum production has played in the history of Barbados.  In 1996, the plantation was completely renovated and became The Foursquare Rum Distillery and Heritage Park. It is today the only remaining Barbadian owned rum manufacturer in Barbados.

Today, Foursquare Rum Distillery is Barbados' largest privately-owned rum exporter, led by David’s son and fourth generation family member Richard Seale.

and has been called the "Macallan of the rum world." Their products do not have any added sugar, flavorings or artificial colorings, producing pure, traditional pot and column still blends. Their Exceptional Cask Selection series features vintage dates and unique cask finishes like Port, Madeira, and Zinfandel that mirror high-end single malt Scotch expressions.

Mount Gay Distillery

Although historical documents indicate distillation equipment existed on the estate as early as 1654, an official legal deed of sale dated February 20, 1703 that mentions a still house and rum-making equipment on the Mount Gilboa Estate, marks the date that establishes Mount Gay as the oldest commercial rum distillery in the world. Mount Gilboa Estate was established by William Sandiford from the consolidation of several sugarcane plantations into a two hundred eighty acre acre estate. In 1747 the estate was acquired by John Sober (1715-1755) and his wife Mary Cumberbatch (1711-1743). It was inherited by their older son John Sober Jr. (1739-1795 ) who unlike his father that was born and died in Barbados, he was an absentee owner who though born in Barbados always lived in England.

Unable to manage the plantation himself due to his residence in England, John Jr asked his friend Sir John Gay Alleyne (1724-1801) to help him manage the estate. At the time Sir John Gay Alleyne was also owner of St. Nicholas Abbey, which had been given as a gift to his wife Christian Dottin upon their marriage in October 1746.‍ ‍John, Gay Alleyene was a prominent member of the Barbados community who aside from managing St. Nicholas Abbey and Mount Gilboa Estate, also served as Speaker of the House of Assembly from 1767-1797.

Upon the death of John Jr. in 1795, the estate was owned by his brother Cumberbatch Sober (1742-1827) who owned it until his death. In 1801 upon the death of Sir John Gay Alleyne, Cumberbatch Sober renamed the estate Mount Gay in his honor and the innovations he implemented to greatly improved the rum's quality. A stated in Cumberbatch Sober’s will, he left his property, including Mount Gay estate and the enslaved people on it, in trust to his son-in-law Thomas Thornhill Sr. ( -1844) husband of his daughter Sarah and Samson Senhouse for the benefit of his wife Judith Wood (1749-1833) for life, and then to sell the estate. Mount Gay Estate was eventually sold in 1858 to Cumberbatch Sober grandson Timothy Thornhill (1804-1875) since when the estate’s ownership is not clear until 1918.

In 1908 Aubrey Fitsosbert “A. F.” Ward (1869-1948) acquired Fairfield Plantation, the first of many plantations he would purchase. By 1913 Ward also owned Harrison’s and Ashton Hall plantations. In 1918, he acquired the 385-acre Mount Gay plantation. In 1918 he acquired the three hundred eighty five acre Mount Gay Estate for £33,000 and organized all the plantations under the Fairfield and Mount Gay Ltd.. He overhauled the distillery adding a column still and partnered with John F. Hutson’s marketing knowledge to establish the Mount Gay brand internationally. In 1926 Ward, Hutson and J W Browne formed Mount Gay Distilleries Ltd. as a legally separate company to blend, bottle and market the rum produced by the distillery to circumvent the law that prevented distilleries from selling rum directly to consumers.

For the next fifty years or so until 1980, the primary business enterprises of A. F. Ward and his descendants were two companies: Fairfield and Mount Gay Ltd. which owned the plantation lands and the distillery in St. Lucy Parish and Mount Gay Distilleries Ltd. which owned the Mount Gay brand, including blending and bottling. When A. F. Ward passed in 1948, his ownership stake in Fairfield and Mount Gay Ltd. was distributed among his many children. However, A. F.’s ownership stake in Mount Gay Distilleries Ltd. passed on to just two of his children, Lisle and Darnley D Ward, who continued to operate the brand for many decades, Lisle focused on the distillery and Darnley on marketing. In time, Darnley and Lisle Ward entrusted the management of the enterprise to Lisle’s son Llewellyn (Louis) Ward.   Louis retired in the early 1990s, passing control to Carl Ward, one of AF Ward’s youngest sons. In 1998 Frank Ward’s son, Frank Ward, Jr., joined the family business and by 2005 was named managing director.

In 1975, Fairfield and Mount Gay Ltd. further split into two companies: Fairfield Investments Ltd. which owned the plantations and Rum Refinery of Mount Gay which owned the St. Lucy distillery. In 1980 Mount Gay Distilleries Ltd, of which Darnley D Ward was Managing Director, sold sixty per cent of its equity to their US agents, Foremost-McKesson Inc. In 1988 McKesson sold its spirits portfolio as “21 Brands, Inc.” and in 1989 French spirits conglomerate Rémy Martin (now Rémy Cointreau) bought 21 Brands, Inc. and with it a majority ownership of Mount Gay Distilleries Ltd. However, Rémy Cointreau owned the Mount Gay brand but not the means of production, i.e., the Rum Refinery of Mount Gay which continued under Ward family control. However, in 2014 the board of the Rum Refinery of Mount Gay sold majority control of the company to Rémy Cointreau for US $9.5 million. This gave Rémy control over the entire Mount Gay pipeline. In 2014 Rémy also purchased the Oxford plantation land that adjoins the distillery and a year later they purchased the original Mount Gay Plantation land for $4.9 million.

Sometime around 2007 Frank Ward, Jr., began setting aside certain amounts of rum for other projects. Since at the time Rémy’s contract with the Rum Refinery of Mount Gay did not include exclusive rights to all the distillery’s capacity. Some of this rum was sold as both aged and unaged expressions under the Mount Gilboa label. Mount Gilboa Rum is triple distilled at the distillery’s double retort pot stills which is not common in the Bajan rum making tradition.

Unlike the other Barbadian rum companies that obtain their spirits from a common distillery Mount Gay Distilleries Ltd. utilizes a mix of traditional copper pot and column stills. Mount Gay is almost unique in that it starts almost from scratch and thereby has total control of the taste and strength of its products. It is one of the few companies in the West Indies still making the old redistilled rum. Their molasses are supplied by Barbados Sugar Factories Ltd. and come from anywhere on the island, but the coral-filtered water which is mixed with them is unique to St Lucy, coming from a well that has supplied the plantation since time immemorial.

West Indies Rum Distillery

West Indies Rum Refinery Ltd. (WIRR) located in Blackrock in the outskirts of Bridgetown, was established in 1893 by German engineer and distiller George Stade who introduced the first column still to the island. In 1901 it became a public company and added pot distilled rum and aged rum to its portfolio. WIRR business model was not to produce its own or any particular brand, rather, they supplied rum to local blenders for their own private label brands such as Goddard’s, Doorly’s, Hanschell Inniss, Alleyne Arthur, E.S.A Field, and others In its beginning it used to produce neutral spirits sold to Valdemar Hanschell who in the first years of the 20th Century had launched the Cockspur brand rum. Cockspur Rum continued to be produced in Barbados by Valdemar Hanschell until 1928 when its parent company became Hanschell Larson in 1928. In 1973 then owned by Hanschell Innis Ltd. since 1971, it was acquired by Goddard Enterprises Ltd. who continued to operate it as a subsidiary. In 1965 Goddard Enterprises Ltd. bought a minority participation in West India Rum Refinery Ltd, and in 1989 turned it into a controlling 88% stake. In 1994 the company was renamed the West Indies Rum Distillery (WIRD) and continued to sell neutral spirits to Goddard Enterprises Ltd. for their Cockspur Rum and to Diageo [5] for their Malibu coconut flavored rum.

In 2006, eleven years before Frenchman Alexandre Gabriel, owner and master blender at Maisson Ferrand bought it in 2017, WIRD had acquired a 33.3% interest of National Rums of Jamaica, owner the Clarendon and Long Pond distilleries in Jamaica. That being the case, some of the rums produced by WIRD were a blend of rums produced in Jamaica and Barbados and aged in France. In 2024, Maisson Ferrand changed the name of its Plantation Rum to Planteray. Also in 2017 the Cockspur brand was acquired by St George, Barbados based Woodland Radicle from Hanschell Innis Ltd., with plans to rebuild the Cockspur brand and take it globally while Hanschell Inniss Ltd. would continue to distribute the brand locally.

Planteray In 2021 the West Indies Rum Distillery announced  the launching of their first branded rum: Stade’s Rum, entirely produced and bottled in Barbados.

St. Nicholas Abbey

St. Nicholas Abbey is a historic sugar plantation established in 1658 that is the site of the oldest surviving Jacobean mansion in the Western Hemisphere built by Col. Benjamin Berringer (1625- 1661) and his wife Lady Margaret Forster (1626-1681), daughter of local Reverend John Foster. Berringer was an Englishman from an influential aristocratic family and a member of the Barbados Council, who arrived in Barbados in 1856 and by 1858 owned the Berringer Plantation. He died in Barbados in January 1661 under suspicious circumstances, rumored, though cleared of the crime by the Barbados Council, to have been murdered by John Yeamans (1611-1674), his former partner in Real Estate speculation and owner of the adjacent Greeenland Plantation.

Yeamans, a Colonel in the Royalist Army who fought for King Charles II during the English Civil War, emigrated from his native Bristol, England to Barbados in 1638 and was also a member of the Barbados Council and a judge in the courts of common pleas. He became Lady Margaret Forster's second husband just four months after Berringer’s death while pregnant with their fourth child. Margaret and her children inherited her husband's plantation and upon their marriage, the Berringer Plantation merged into Greenland Plantation to form the three hundred sixty five acre Yeamans Plantation. However, in 1669 the Barbados court ruled that Berringer’s property could not be merged with Yeamans’s holdings and returned it to his children.

Upon the passing of Lady Margaret Forster in South Carolina where she had married a third time to Cpt. Wiliam Walley, the plantation remained in the Berringer family inherited by her son Jehu Berringer (1643-1681) who died a month layer passing then to his daughter Susannah and son-in-law George Nicholas. Susannah detested John Yeamans, her grandfather’s assumed murderer, and refused to keep his name on the property. It was then that Susannah and George changed the name to Nicholas Plantation and in accordance with the matrimonial law of that period, it automatically became her husband's.

George Nicholas ran into debt and in the 1720s was forced to sell the Nicholas Plantation. It was bought by Joseph Dottin (1690-1735), who bequeathed it in 1746 to his daughter Christian as a wedding gift on her marriage to John Gay Alleyne (1724-1801), who lived at the plantation from his marriage to his death in 1801. Lady Christian Alleyne’s will stipulated that the plantation should pass to her children, but her only son had already died aged twelve, therefore the Nicholas Plantation reverted back to the Dottin family. But, with the Napoleonic Wars raging across Europe, attempts to track down the descendants of Joseph Dottin proved futile. During this time the estate began to incur considerable debts which led to it being possessed in 1810 by the Court of Chancery at Bridgetown.

That same year the plantation was bought by Edward Carleton Cumberbatch (1795-1835) and Lawrence Trent Cumberbatch ( -1834) for £2O,700. When the brothers died, the plantation was to be inherited by Edward’s son, but when he forfeited his inheritance it passed on to the brother’s only sister, Sarah Cumberbatch (1797-1862) and her husband Charles Cave (1796-1887), one of the co-heirs to the Cave family fortune derived from banking. Sarah and Charles changed the name to St. Nicholas Abbey. Upon their passing, St. Nicholas Abbey passed to their second son, Lawrence Trent Cave (1825-1899) and his wife Lucy Greenwood (1842- ) who were the first owners of the plantation not to live there as they resided in Florence, Italy, before returning to England. 

In 1899, the plantation was inherited by Lawrence and Lucy's eldest son, Charles John Philip Cave (1872-1950) who was also an absentee owner, though he and other family members did visit the plantation in 1935 when it was still producing sugar and syrup at the old mill. Production of sugar and syrup ceased here in 1947 when it became more cost effective to outsource to a larger factory. Its machinery, including an 1890 steam-mill, were sold for scrap.

In 1964, Charles’ son, Lt. Col. Stephen Cave O.B.E., inherited St. Nicholas Abbey. In 1978, he moved to Barbados and became the first owner to live there full-time since the 1800s. Stephen Cave died in 2003 and having no children left St. Nicholas to his nephew, James Joseph Petri. In 2006, Petri sold St. Nicholas Abbey to its present owner, the renowned Barbadian architect Larry Warren. They began an extensive historical restoration of the Great House, installed a new distillery, and built the St. Nicholas Abbey Heritage Railway.

St. Nicholas Abbey Rum is the only rum produced in Barbados from estate-grown sugarcane syrup rather than molasses. It is produced following the traditional molasses distillation process in a custom built combination copper pot and column still called Annabelle that produces alcohol at 92% or 184˚ proof diluted to 65% and aged in used American Oak bourbon barrels. According to their official webpage, St. Nicholas Abbey Rum is only available for purchase at the plantation’s gift shop and online at select distributors.

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[5] In 2002, Diageo sold the Malibu brand to Allied Domecq for £560 million whoo in 2005 French beverage giant Pernod Ricard purchased it from Allied Domecq for $14 billion, taking control of Malibu brand and folding it into The Absolut Co. portfolio.