Mount Gay, the rum distillery with the honour of being the world's oldest active producer, is continuing on their pivotal Single Estate series with Editions 3 and 4, or Mount Gay Single Estate Series 25 | 03 | Vt24CF (Edition 3) and Mount Gay Single Estate Series 25 | 04 | Vt19dp (Edition 4)!

This project is a breathtaking one, where the distillery's Master Blender Trudiann Branker had decided for the distillery's 320th anniversary to deliver the ultimate single point of terroir by bringing cane growing and harvesting back to the Mount Gay estate in Barbados. Everything from farming sugarcane on its own estate to fermenting, distilling and bottling, has thus been done entirely on this single estate. 

The last time Mount Gay had farmed its own cane was in 1970, after which the distillery had decided to sell off all its sugarcane estates and had instead transitioned to sourcing molasses from Barbados and more broadly across the Caribbeans.

Yet Mount Gay has gone one step further, opting to focus on obtaining the highest quality Grade A molasses instead of the standard blackstrap molasses, ensuring that the Single Estate series would see no expense spared. It's also key to note that according to Branker, Bajan cane stands out for its unique terroir of limestone rich soils as opposed to volcanic soils which is more common across the Caribbean. 

The inaugural release from the new annual Mount Gay Single Estate Series, the Mount Gay Single Estate Series 23_01 is thus distilled from Grade A molasses produced from estate-grown sugarcane that was harvested from 2016 to 2017, which was then fermented for a longer period, before 100% distillation by pot still, and then 5-6 years of tropical ageing (6 Years for 2016 Vintage and 5 Years for 2017 Vintage) in ex-Bourbon American Oak barrels at the Mount Gay estate.

Each edition comes with a code that indicates how it has been produced - in the case of the inaugural expression, this was 23_01_Bn_Qa, which stood for 2023 Release, 01 Edition and Bourbon (Quercus Alba) cask used for ageing.

And now digging into the Editions 3 and 4 - here's what we got!

Mount Gay Single Estate Series Edition 3 (25 | 03 | Vt24CF)

Edition 3 appears to be 100% Coffey Still distilled, and likely unaged (Pre Cask), bottled at 48% ABV, with a total of 1,920 bottles to be released. From the code assigned, we can tell that this was also the 2024 Vintage of harvest.

Mount Gay Single Estate Series Edition 4 (25 | 04 | Vt19dp)

Edition 4 appears to be 100% Pot Still distilled, and aged in ex-Bourbon casks, bottled at 55% ABV, with a total of 2,754 bottles to be released. From the code assigned, we can tell that this was also the 2019 Vintage of harvest, which should make this between 5-6 years old.

Kanpai!

88 Bamboo Editorial Team