Antigua Distillery Limited

The Antigua Distillers Ltd is the only 'Portuguese' distillery in the Caribbean after the closure of Fernandes in Trinidad in the 1970s. Its history is rooted in the end of slavery, decreed in 1834.

Following the emancipation of the slaves, the English made contracts with farmers from Madeira (Portugal) to continue growing sugar cane. The contract provided for 5 years of work plus the return journey home.
The Portuguese, despite the many difficulties they encountered, especially due to the hot tropical climate, could not return to their country before the end of the contract, so they decided to stay in Antigua and began marketing rum. The crisis in the sugar industry continued in the second half of the 19th century, and it was increasingly difficult to find molasses to distil. Portuguese rum traders started buying rum from Barbados.

In 1929 the Vierra, Farara, Baretto, Gomes, Angio and Joaquim families, all from Madeira, founded The Antigua Distillery Limited and bought the Montpellier Sugar Factory, where they started producing high grade muscovado molasses. Later, in 1932, they opened the distillery using a savalle column. Each rum shop produced its own labels: Red Cock, Black Cock, White House, Silver Leaf, Bolanda... From 1939 to 1945, the Portuguese bought from the British 20 estates, Lynch's, Colebrook, Browns, Skerret's and Folly, Walrond's, Harman's, Hope, thus increasing their production capacity.

In 1954 after the arrest of the Montpellier Sugar Factory, Antigua Distillers started buying molasses in Gunthorpes, from the Sugar Central Factory.
Today the molasses is imported from Guyana, and is placed in a large tank with a capacity of 2500 tons, overlooking the port of St John, next to the distillery.
English Harbour is a molasses rum, with long fermentation and distillation in a continuous triple column and there is still the Savalle column from the Sugar Central Factory.
Rainwater and some yeasts used for bread making are added to the fermentation; everything is influenced by the salty air and the wild yeasts present in the so-called fermentation room.