Rum, Jamaica. Distillery operational. Owner: Everglades Farms Ltd.

Independent & family-ownedKnown primarily in the rum, perfume and food industries, Hampden began to move out of the shadows in 2009 when the Jamaican government decided to disinvest from the national Jamaica Sugar Company and auctioned off its assets. The family-owned company Everglades Farms Ltd (owned by the Hussey family) secured the lot and became the owner of this gem which is now considered the alter ego of the Scottish distillery Ardbeg. This link with Scotland is no coincidence. Hampden Estate was bought in 1748 by Robert Stirling, who had left Perthshire (Scotland) in 1742. The Hussey family sells two expressions of its rum, including an Overproof which is particularly well-known in the bar and HORECA segment. But it was in 2017, when family-owned Italian (Velier) and French (LMDW) companies began distributing the first old rums, that Hampden really took off, rising to the ranks of the finest rums currently on the market.

A Hampden distilled in 1998 and bottled at cask strength by The Wild Parrot (Hidden Spirits) in 2018. Hidden Spirits is an independent bottler founded in 2013 by Andrea Ferrari. It gained renown with several memorable bottlings of Bowmore, Clynelish and Ben Nevis, among others. Hidden Spirits also owns The Wild Parrot, a collection of rums selected by Stefano Cremaschi that has featured several famed editions of Caroni, Hampden and Demerara.