Founded in 1655 as a sugar refinery, The Appleton Estate began producing rum in 1749, making it the oldest rum distillery in Jamaica still in operation. The Appleton Estate Special, the estate’‘s flagship product, was created during the Second World War to compensate the shortage of whisky on the island. Over the decades the distillery has survived various crises by using an independent sugar cane supplier. In 1997 Appleton Estate appointed Joy Spence as their Master Blender, the first woman to occupy such a position in the rum industry. The Appleton Estate is highly renowned among experts and regularly wins awards for the consistent quality of its production.

An Appleton 37 year old small batch (#3391-3399) distilled in 1984 and bottled in 2021 by Velier for the Hearts Collection. 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 angels’’ share. 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.