The House of Jamaican Funk
cherrypicking some history
The Mekka of ester-nerds and people who love good rum in general. The Hampden Estate distillery is a must visit for anyone who likes jamaican rum.
Like many, the distillery started as a sugar plantation. The plantation started its operation around 1753 in the Trelawny Parish under scottish rule. In 1779 the iconic Great House was built, it was used as a rum store until the early 1900’s. then the Great House became the residence of the estate’s owners and eventually reaching its final stage as subject for the label art of the Distillery bottlings in 2019.
In 1827, ownership of the estate changed to Dermot Owen Kelly-Lawson (better known by his initials DOK). And through a marriage into the Kelly-Lawson family Mr Farquarson came to posses the estate.
With the 21st century coming around, it was once again time for a change in management. This time the new owner was the Sugar Company of Jamaica. As the name might suggest, the main focus of the company was sugar. All of the rum produced in the distillery were exported to Europe for blending.
The last and current owners are the Hussey family. They took over in 2009 under the name of Everglades Farm Ltd. through a public bid for the estate. Since then they’ve focused on the heritage of the place and more importantly (for us) on rum. This focus paid of in 2018 when they finally released the first fully Jamaican aged home bottled Hampden rums.
The inner workings
Fermentation
When the molasses enters the distillery it’s mixed with water, dunder (the “leftovers” of previous distilling runs), sugar cane vinegar and muck (a mixture of bagasse (crushed cane), bacteria, acid and who knows what else, which often has been laid to rest underground). This mixture will then be put in the fermenting vats and laid open for the wild yeasts in the air to react with it.
Hampden does not use cultivated yeast strains as they let the environmental yeasts do their work. Fermentation lasts for about 8-15 days, here is when it becomes a mash. After 10 days the process of creating alcohol through fermentation stops, this is when the mixture starts to oxidize more and mainly esterfication happens.
As esters are the result of acids colliding and combining with alcohols, so the longer the mash is fermented, the more esters are created over time.
Distillation
Hampden Estate Distillery only distills only with double retort pot stills. A batch distillation process which creates a heavier and fuller palate than its alternative, the column still.
There are 4 stills at the moment. The oldest of which is a John Dore, which was installed in the 1960’s. The three other stills are: Vendome (1994), Forsyths (2010) and TNT (2016). More stills are under construction or have been built by now.
- Sources:
- https://www.hampdenestaterum.com/the-history/
- https://www.hampdenestaterum.com/the-distillery/
- https://cocktailwonk.com/2016/04/ground-zero-of-jamaican-funk-going-deep-at-hampden-estate.html
If you see any wrong information or find that there’s information lacking, don’t hesitate to contact me:
The Rum Robin 