Monymusk Estate located in Lionel Town, Clarendon Parrish was originally a sugar mill and rum distillery established in 1755. Not much information is available regarding its early ownership and development prior to 1901 when the modern sugar factory operations began. It is known though, that sometime in the 18th Century the Monymusk Estate in Jamaica came into the Grant family. Sir Archibald Grant, 2nd Baronet of Monymusk, Aberdeen (1696-1778) married for a third time to Elizabeth Clark, the widow of Dr. James Callander of Jamaica of which marriage no children were born. The Grant family gained ownership of the estate as a dowry when in 1755 Sir Archibald Grant’s son Sir Archibald Grant 3rd Baronet of Monymusk, Aberdeen (1731-1796) married for a second time Mary Callander, the daughter of Dr. James Callander. The estate remained in the Grant family until approximately 1850. It is reasonable to believe the Monymusk name was given to the estate during its ownership by the Grant family.

In 1901, J. Wray & Nephew, then owned by Colonel Charles James “C.J.” Ward ( -1913) who had inherited it in 1864 from his uncle John Wray ( -1870), purchased Monymusk Sugar Estate. Upon Ward’s death in 1913, in 1916 his trustees sold Monymusk Estate to the Lindo Brothers & Co., whose resident manager was Percy Lindo. In 1917 Lindo Brothers & Co. moved all distillery operations from Monymusk to Appleton Estate which they had acquired a year earlier. In 1928 Lindo Brothers & Co. sold Monumusk Estate to Clarendon Plantation Ltd. who in 1929 sold it to the United Fruit Co. who since the late 1920s had owned Bernard Lodge and Amity Hall sugar factories in Jamaica. In 1936, Clarendon Plantation Ltd. again acquired owneship of Monymusk Estate in a joint venture with Jamaica Sugar Manufacturing Co. Ownership by the joint venture was short lived as on May 22, 1937 they sold Monymusk Estate to the West Indies Sugar Co. Ltd. (WISCo), a subsidiary of sugar industry refiner Tate & Lyle of London established that year with a capital of £600,000.

Construction of the new Monymusk central sugar mill was postponed due to WWII but was finally completed in 1949 after the acquisition of the neighboring Blog Plantation, making Monymusk the second largest central sugar mill in Jamaica behind Frome. Production grew from 16,000 m.t. in 1938 to 80,600 m.t. by 1965, but by on December 17, 1976 declining conditions lead to the sale of its assets to the Jamaican government under the Sugar Corporation of Jamaica. In 1980 the Jamaican Government established National Rums of Jamaica Ltd. (NRJ) as a subsidiary of the Sugar Corporation of Jamaica to asume control of the Long Pond [1], Innswood [2] and Clarendon distilleries, the latter built in 1938 by Monymusk on the sugar mills premises but since 1978 operated by a subsidiary company named Clarendon Distillers Ltd.

As a result of the 2009 Government privatization of the sugar industry efforts, in 2011 Monymusk was awarded to Pan Caribbean Sugar Co., the subsidiary of Chinese-based Hua Lien International Holding Co. Ltd. that operates six sugar mills in Africa.  ​Although Monymusk had a production capacity of 65,000 m.t., sugar production at Monymusk for the 2016/17 and 2017/18 crop years was only 11,200 and 8,100 m.t.  ​Due low production and heavy losses as a consequence, Pan Caribbean decided to cease to operate Monymusk and returned it to the Government after the 2018 crop year since when the Monymusk sugar factory has been idle.

​Due to sustained losses, in 1993 the state sold stakes of NRJ to Demerara Distillers Ltd. of Guyana and West Indies Rum Distillery of Barbados. In 2006 further diversification was achieved when ownershipp of NRJ was split between NRJ, Demerara Distillers Ltd. of Guyana and Maison Ferrand of France with 73% and Diageo with the remaining 27%. Why Diageo, the big British conglomerate is involved in this enterprise?  Because of Henry Morgan, the Port Royal buccaneer also known as Captain Morgan.  Diageo produces Captain Morgan Spiced Rum for the US market at a large distillery in St. Croix, USVI due to the tax advantages for rums produced in a US Territory.  Since there is no tax benefits for rum exported to the European Union for rums from the USVI, the Captain Morgan Spiced Rum sold there is produced at Clarendon Distillery.  As an additional curious note, since Diageo does not own the rights for the name in Jamaica, Captain Morgan Spiced Rum sold in Jamaica is produced by J Wray & Nephew Co. Ltd.

NRJ is a major producer of bulk rum, providing spirits as stated above for major brands like Diageos’s Captain Morgan Rum for sale in Europe, Maison Ferrand’s Planteray Rum and Sazerac Co. well known Myers's Rum. They also produce Monymusk Rum at the Clarendon facility and Long Pond Rum at the Long Pond facility in Trelawny Parrish.

In December 2015 the government of Jamaica Government Information Services released news that a US$50 million investment by Indian investors owned Tropical Sugar Co. Ltd. to re-establish commercial-scale sugar production in Clarendon near to the former Monymusk Estate. The new factory will consist of approximately eleven thousand acres of former sugar lands leased from Sugar Company of Jamaica Holdings Ltd. Construction is set to start in January 2026 and last some eighteen months.

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[1] Long Pond Estate was a sugar plantation and rum distillery located in Trelawny Parish, nearby Hampden Estate.  It began operations in 1753and was originally owned by Sir Simon Haughton Clarke 9th in the line of the Baronet in the Clarke family from Cheshire, England. In 1921 the estate was sold to Sherriff & Co. Ltd., a group of Scottish distillers. In 1953, the estate was acquired by the Jamaican government who that same year sold it to Seagram Limited of Montreal Canada who needed a steady supply of rum for their Captain Morgan brand, and renamed it Trelawny Estates Ltd. In 1977, the Jamaican government bought back Trelawny Estates Ltd. under the National Sugar Company of Long Pond. In 1980, the National Sugar Company of Long Pond sold its distillery operations owned byits subsidiary Long Pond Distillers, Ltd. to National Rums of Jamaica (NRJ).  In 2009, the Hussey family, through Everglade Farms Ltd. who also owns Hampden Estate, purchased National Sugar Company of Long Pond. After investing far more money than they had originally planned and not seeing profits, the Long Pond Sugar Factory was shut down in 2016. Due to environmental concerns regarding the inability to dispose of the dunder left over after distillation, Long Pond distillery was shut down in 2012.  In July 2017, production restarted at Long Pond, but less than a year later, in July 2018, Long Pond was devastated by a fire which began in a cane field of the neighboring abandoned Long Pond Sugar Factory that spread to the warehouse and the fermentation plant, destroying 17,000 US gallons of rum and the fermentation tanks. The distillery partially reopened in September 2018 producing a limited number of rums with the fermentation plant not reopening until 2022.  In 2021, Long Pond created its own house brand, Long Pond, and released their first bottling.

[2] Innswood Distillery located in Innswood, St. Catherine Parrish was owned by the Innswood Sugar Factory and began operations as a distillery in 1956. The distillery was acquired by NRJ in 1980 who ceased distilling operations here in 1993. Since 2000, the facility has been used as an aging and blending facility for the Clarendon Distillery and the Long Pond Distillery that is not exported. The facility is also used for the preparation of denatured rum that is sold for the production of rubbing alcohol, bay rum and cosmetics.