Worthy Park 10 years 2007 Of. WPL bottled 2017 Habitation Velier (Brown)

Worthy Park was founded in the early 18th century in Lluidas Vale, in the parish of Sainte-Catherine, Jamaica. The estate was used to produce sugar and records show it was producing rum as far back as 1741. It would continue to do so for more than two centuries, before the overproduction of rum in Jamaica led the distillery to close in 1950. The estate, which has seen only three owners throughout its long history, has belonged to the Clarke family since 1918, who were responsible for its reconstruction in 2015, during which it was equipped with a Forsyths double-retort pot still. Production began again shortly after. The company offers its own brands Rum Bar and Worthy Park Gold, and, more recently, Worthy Park Estate.

This Worthy Park was distilled in 2007 and aged for 10 years at the distillery. It is distilled in a pot still and bears the mark WPL, meaning it has a low ester rate and fairly light style. The Habitation Velier range showcases the stills used by its various distilleries—key and impressive elements in the world of rum, with famous examples including Guyana’’s wooden stills. Velier was founded in Genoa by Casimir Chaix in 1947. It was originally a small, family-run business specializing in the import and distribution of wine and spirits. Luca Gargano, a former representative for Saint James and serious rum collector and enthusiast, bought the business in 1986 and began bottling whisky first in 1992 and then rum in 1996. It was in 1996 that Gargano bottled his first Demerara rums. In 2004, Gargano was invited to Guyana to select casks by his friend Yesu Persaud, then the CEO of Demerara Distillers Limited (DDL). This partnership ended in 2015 when Persaud retired, but the rums bottled in the meantime became legendary. The same can be said for the Caroni casks he bought in 2005, two years after the distillery closed, following a visit to Trinidad with Fredi Marcarini the previous year to take photos. These two lines of bottlings built the renown of Velier, today also known for its work in other parts of the Caribbean, such as Barbados, Jamaica, Haiti and Marie-Galante. Rums selected by Velier are only ever aged in a tropical climate, which explains both their concentration and the high angel’’s share. They are generally bottled at cask strength or just below. Finally, Gargano has, for several years, fought for stricter classification of rum, even proposing his own model, which has since been adopted by several of Velier’’s partners.