Description

Christian Drouin Senior bought a farm in Gonneville, Normandy, in the 1960s. Armed with a love of fine wine and fine food, he decided to use the cider apple orchard to make Calvados and the family has been doing it ever since. Now the mantle has been passed to Christian Drouin Junior and the third generation to join the farm, Guillaume Drouin. Their Calvados is now sold worldwide and is widely considered to be the finest on the market, as demonstrated by the more than 200 gold medals it has received in spirits competitions.

Hampden Estate is the mythical kind of producer whispered about by cocktail bartenders and diehard rum geeks, making this a very exciting collaboration. Originally Scottish-owned and active non-stop since 1753, Hampden is one of the oldest cane field owners in Jamaica and produces high ester rum with true terroir. Based in Trelawny, it’s one of only two rum distilleries in the entire world to use both their own spring water and sugar, and to also employ purely pot stills, wild fermentation and no addition of sugar or colouring. Master Distiller Vivian Wisdom also reserves both the dunder (non-alcoholic stillage) in wooden vats and the thick dark and bubbling gloop lovingly referred to as ‘muck’ (the skimmings from fermentation and by-products of the production process), these are reintroduced to their fermented molasses creating a completely unique fruity funk. As wild as the biodiversity that surrounds the distillery, they create craft rum like no other on the planet.