Distillery Visit: Hampden Estate (May 2023)

My significant other and I recently had the opportunity to visit Jamaica for vacation. Naturally we had to visit some of the distilleries on the island so I decided to write down about our visit here to Hampden Estate. The journey to Hampden from Montego Bay itself was a journey as our driver navigated narrow roads with blind s-curves, folks walking, and other drivers at high speeds while dodging potholes. We arrived at the distillery intact and were greeted by Peppie Grant (Tour Manager at Hampden Estate) who sprayed our hands with some high ester rum from a spritz bottle. (I presume it was Rumfire, it smelled wonderful). As we settled in with our small Tour group consisting of my significant other, I, and 3 others we were given some rum punch as Peppie discussed the history of the local area, Jamaica, and Hampden Estate as a whole. Peppie opened his talk with “Don’t believe everything you read in the history books”. This was fascinating talk which in hindsight I wish I had recorded but after he in depth history lesson we walked through the process of how Hampden Estate makes its rum with its limestone filtered water, molasses, dunder, fermentation, and muck if higher ester marques are being made. After the technical talk we were ready for our journey to begin!

Our first stop on this journey was one of the retired pot stills from the distillery that you see as you pull in. This still was retired 9 years ago as it was not worth the upkeep required to keep it going. The wood the still rests on is from local cedar that was formerly in use in another capacity in the distillery and the same case with the bricks. Peppie told us that “If a distillery is upright in Jamaica, even if it has no fire, we are still taxed on it”.

The above is one of the couple of Peacocks and peahens that roam the distillery grounds. They are very hard to miss sight and soundwise. I imagine they help let the folks working the distillery know if someone is pulling in.

One of the other sights right next to the visitor center that greets you is the Great House of Hampden Estate. This is the famous house that is depicted on the bottle of Great House that Hampden has releases annually since 2019. The house is stayed in by occasion according to Peppie by the owners of the distillery as well as plays host to rum industry veterans when they come to visit. According to Peppie, every room in the house except the bathroom has a bar in it so we can only imagine how these industry events go.

As you walk through the gates of the distillery the first thing that hits you just a few feet in is the smell and it is incredible. More on smells in a bit however the first few things you see is the walkway into the working distillery. On the left above you see the oldest operating still in the distillery here. On the right, pictured below, is a view from underath of the dunder tanks. Dunder that is resting waiting to be used is stored inside these vats made from local cedar.

(Note, the above picture was taken by my significant other who can be found on Instagram at foxxy_mamma.

As we walked through we came to this building, which is where the magic really happens. This is an original building on the estate and has been on the distillery for hundreds of years. This is the fermentation house. Before we get into that Peppie discussed how they had a small amount of fresh cane that they grew on the estate. This cane after being harvested is crushed and loaded into steel tanks where it is left to ferment for 30 days and turn into Cane Vinegar or acid. This is part of the magic that takes place in the fermentation house.

Now you will note the sign that states no pictures so alas, this is the best we have of the most magical place on the distillery. But it is a pretty great photograph of Peppie the distillery manager. Now, inside this house are vats that the molasses is fermented in with a mix of dunder, cane juice, and muck if it calls for it. This fermentation occurs over 2 weeks in these open top vats. The yeast that is used is natural from the environment and the elements added in from the cane vinegar and dunder. Some folks would be a bit dismayed by the inside of this place. Its dark, hot, and pretty dirty if we are being honest. But, that is where the magic comes from. The natural bacteria and yeast in the air is what drives the fermentation. Peppie told us that “It’s actually hard for us to make stuff under 500 esters, we have to clean the vats a bit to make those low ester marques like OWH and LROK.”

Now let us talk about the smells here. As you walk in the distillery you are hit by a myriad of things, over-ripe fruits, cement glue, citrus, meat, its an all out assault on your olfactory senses that even DOK can barely manage to match. Though high ester marques from Hampden transport you there for a bit, they are but a pale shadow. The smells change every 5 to 10 feet in terms of what you are smelling and strength. Nowhere quite so much as standing in the middle of this building which we did. Breads, Citrus, Glue, Tropical Fruits, Meats, its all fair game and on the table. This is part of what makes Hampden such an incredible place. They are doing things, for the most part, as they have been done since the distillery opened over 200 years ago.

From the fermentation house, where I wish we could have lingered longer, we moved to the pot stills. 6 pot stills sit in this area, running the distillation process of the distillery. These were running while we were there and let me tell you, standing around these things was a sauna. 7-8 hours for a run according to Peppie. Here the fermented molasses goes from a 9% beer like liquid to rum. It comes off the still at between 85-87% abv for Hampden Estate. Any higher, and its no longer rum, its “John Crow Batty”, or Moonshine in this case. Only pot stills at Hampden Estate, no column stills to be found.

In this video you can see Dunder being collected in the tank below. Once it cools it will be stored in the cedar vats behind it for use later. What exactly is dunder? Well it is the stillage left over from a run. So you take your fermented 9% wash and distill it through your still. You take whats left after the rum is made and that is dunder.

From there we went into a truly exciting place in the distillery, the rum lab. Its a small and (thankfully) air conditioned space where samples are taken by the team to measure alcohol levels, ester counts, etc. They check the batches here to make sure that they are meeting their benchmarks.

Also kept here in the corner of the lab are a collection of bottles of various aged and unaged marques, blends, and bottlings for reference. Compared to the other fine folks in the group my signficant other and I were kind of the hardcore rum nerds of the group so we were delighted when Peppie revealed the next act. Our companions minds were blown as Peppie poured and diluted the highest ester marques in unaged fashion for sampling. These of course were some DOK (1500-1600 gr/hLAA), HGML(1000-1100 gr/hLAA), and C<>H (1300-1400 gr/hLAA). In addition to these unaged we had some aged DOK and HGML to compare. The room instantly filled with the wonderful smells of high ester rums and they tasted just a great as they smelled. We hungout in here for a bit and talked about the different marques before we moved on back to the gift shop / entrance area with our high ester rums in hand. On the way back over Peppie talked to us a bit about Muck and the Cousins process, both items relating to high ester rum production and which other resources can explain far better than I.

We had lunch of Jerk Chicken, Jerk Pork, and Festivals before we rejoined Peppie in the small bar in the entrance area. Here he talked about Rum Fire (and how it burned blue). Then we sampled some RumFire and the new blend of HLCF classic. Getting to see other folks who were new to Hampden get introduced to this incredible distillery and its rum was the highlight of the day as was being given the tour by Peppie who was happy to answer any question and was passionate about the rum.

Overall, hardcore rum geeks should visit Hampden Estate at least once in your life.