Angostura Tour

[Berbician]

I've just come back from Trinidad - yes I know, it's a hard life - and I thought I'd post a review of the Angostura Distillery Tour.

First of all, it's quite difficult to arrange as they need a minimum of 15 people. Fortunately, a cruise ship docked one day.

If you're mainly interested in the actual mechanics of making the rum(s), you will be disappointed - very little time is devoted to that part of the business. However, butterfly enthusiasts will be in heaven. They have a huge collection of several thousand butterflies - all dead unfortunately. Most of the rest of the tour consisted of a history lesson about the Siegert family and their role in setting up the company.

There were one or two highlights though. The smell of Angostura Bitters pervades the entire site, and I did get to taste some of their products. I wanted to give the Forres Park Puncheon (75% alcohol) a try, and I did, but everything I sampled after that tasted horrrible. Perhaps I should have left the strongest till last.

Finally, there's a shop where you can buy all their products at very reasonable prices.

So, all in all, a pleasant enough couple of hours, but not one of the more exciting distillery tours.

[RonJames]

Thanks for the read Berbician, I always like to hear how a tour goes. Thats interesting where they need 15 people, makes you definitely plan ahead.

[TheRumelier]

I was there early last year and had a personal tour of the facility. Even with this I did not see too much as it was raining and the lady who was showing me around was scared to go into most of the distillery after a recent explosion!!! I did see the bottling lines and ladies hand-painting the Limbo Drummer bottle. I really wanted to see the cooperage, aging warehouses, etc. You however, can't miss the huge column stills that dominate the distillery. It was interesting to see some other well known brands being bottled though!!!