Rum starts with sugarcane, a tall, tropical grass that thrives in warm and humid climates around the globe.

When crushed, the plant’s thick stalks release a sweet juice. Different varieties of sugarcane have unique characteristics depending on where they grow, influencing the flavour of the final product.

Sugarcane was first introduced to Barbados around 1640 and quickly became the country’s dominant crop. Sugar manufacturers produced molasses as a byproduct of refining sugar, and that molasses was first fermented and distilled into “rumbullion” – also known as “Kill Devil” – in the 1650s. And so rum was born, right here in Barbados!

At Stade’s Rum Distillery, we work hand in hand with the West Indies Sugar Cane Breeding Station (WISCBS) – one of the oldest in the world – to develop sugarcane varieties perfectly suited for making rum in the Barbadian terroir.

Historically, sugarcane was cultivated to produce sugar, and the molasses created during the manufacturing process was just a byproduct.

Thanks to our research and testing projects with WISCBS, we have selected five varieties of sugarcane with aromatic profiles that will make delicious Barbados rum.

We’ve planted 30 acres of these special canes at our Kendal Farm, with the ambition to rapidly reach 100 acres, and extract the juice at our own Harper Sugarcane Mill, built in partnership with WISCBS.

Molasses, the thick and nutrient-rich syrup that remains after sugar has been extracted from crushed sugarcane. It is combined with yeast to convert its sugars to alcohol (fermentation) and develop the natural esters that form rum’s rich flavours.

Our Yeast Nursery cultivates special yeast strains, including those that naturally flourish in the environment around our seaside distillery, to create the signature flavours of our Barbadian rums.

At Stade’s Rum Distillery we make three types of rums, each with its own base and fermentation parameters. In addition to traditional molasses-based rum, we make rum from crushed sugarcane juice as well as a “fusion” method which dilutes molasses with cane juice.

Together, these three approaches give our fermentation and distillation teams an unusually broad palette to work from, allowing them to create the full spectrum of rum styles that sets Stade’s Rum Distillery apart.

Fermentation times can vary from 24 hours to several weeks; the longer the fermentation, the higher the proportion of esters, and the more powerful the aromatic profile. Both long and short fermentations are used to create different rum profiles.

At the end of the fermentation process, sugars have been transformed into alcohol and the “wash” is ready to go into the stills.

Distillation is the process of heating and vaporizing the wash in a pot or column still, where the alcohol and flavour compounds rise and recondense back into liquid form.

Stade’s Rum Distillery is a living museum of historic distillation equipment, with the largest collection of original stills in the Caribbean.

The grande dame of our treasury is the Rockley Still, the world’s oldest working rum copper pot still, as attested by none other than David Pym, owner of John Dore Coppersmiths! The Rockley was made in the 1780s, the time of Mozart, by British coppersmiths James Shears & Sons and came to Stade’s Rum Distillery in 1936. It produced heavy single-batch rum for close to four decades before it was dismantled to lie dormant in the distillery yard. Our own team of coppersmith toiled for over 3000 hours to restore the Rockley, drawing on archival documents found in our Distiller’s Vault. It came back to life in 2023 to make Barbados rum once again.

Another extreme rarity at Stade’s Rum Distillery, a still that’s somewhere between a pot and a column: the Vulcan, the only remaining three-chamber still of origin in the world, at the distillery since 1941. This type of still traditionally produced rye whiskey in the United States. Thanks to Henderson “Digger” Skinner, one of our longest-serving distillers, we still know how to use it!  He even remembered that back in the day, “two taps” of a pipe could coax the still back into service when it was being temperamental.

Nearby hums our Gregg’s Farm pot still, built around 1850 when Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo were writing their works. The “new but old” John Dore #88 pot still was made in 2020 with reclaimed copper to replicate 19th century blueprints found in our Distiller’s Vault.

Continous column stills were introduced in the 19th century as an alternative to batch-by-batch pot stills. George Stade, who founded Stade’s Rum Distillery in 1893, designed and built his own patented column still to produce lighter rums. It was the first column still in Barbados.

Our collection of antique stills might still be just museum pieces if it weren’t for our Distiller’s Vault – a hidden cache of records going back over a century, documenting the work of generations of rum makers. This gold mine of blueprints, recipes, fermentation techniques, experiments and shipping logs inspires us to revive forgotten methods and try new approaches every day.

Rum is aged in wooden barrels and vats to develop flavour, smoothness, and complexity. A rum’s personality comes to the fore during the ageing process.

As rum rests in wooden casks, primarily in American oak barrels that previously stored bourbon, it absorbs flavours from the wood – notes like vanilla, spice, caramel, coconut, and toasted oak. The interaction between spirit and barrel gradually transforms the raw distillate into a richer, more layered rum. Time in the barrel also allows the rum to soften. Harsh edges mellow and flavours become more balanced.

In tropical climates like Barbados, ageing happens as the warmer weather causes the spirit in the barrel to evaporate, leaving a more concentrated liquid behind. The vapour that escapes the barrel is referred to as the “Angel’s Share”. Here, the increased Angel’s Share creates intense flavour development in fewer years than in cooler climates. The wood of the barrel also gives rum its golden or amber colour, the sign of a mature rum that has acquired depth, smoothness, and character over time.

At the only beachfront distillery in Barbados, we age our rums just steps from the sea-swept water outside our door.

Our Bond No. 1 warehouse was built on the sand when the distillery opened in 1893, making it the island’s oldest legal rum warehouse still operating today. Barrels maturing in these unique conditions take their time in the sun, refreshed by steady sea breezes and the increased humidity in the air. These living natural elements shape our rums into smooth, balanced spirits that could not be created anywhere else. The Stade’s Rum motto says it best: “Mellowed By The Sea.”

Inland, at Kendal Farm, we are building additional warehouses on a high plateau that gets lots of wind from both the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea on either side of the island. This special microclimate imprints its signature on the rums that we age and blend here.

At the blending stage, rum becomes a finished creation.

Alexandre Gabriel, owner of our parent company Maison Ferrand and Master Blender for over 35 years, combines his deep expertise and personal flair with that of our skilled blenders. Together they select and combine rums from different barrels to shape rums with distinctive style.

Each barrel develops its own character over time. Choosing from many types of rum – lighter or richer, younger or older – is like combining the sounds of musical instruments to compose a symphony. There’s a reason we call the various elements of flavour, notes!

Orchestrating a perfect blend is part craft and part intuition. Blenders build rums whose elements work together to create a true harmony.

Barbados rum is especially celebrated for its wide diversity of styles, incomparable to any other terroir.

From fresh white rums to rich, deeply aged expressions, this range creates endless possibilities for creating rums that are balanced, complex, and perfectly suited to both sipping and mixing.

Blending of column still and more intense pot still rums started in Barbados with George Stade himself, when he built his patented column still on Brighton Beach and blended its lighter distillate with that of traditional pot stills.

With great pride in this heritage, we continue the tradition in every expression we blend.