Mount Gay was founded in 1703, making it the oldest rum producer in the world. John Sober inherited a small distillery at the top of Mount Gilboa, in the parish of Saint Lucy, Barbados. In 1947, he put Sir John Gay Alleyne in charge of the distillery. Sober was so impressed by Sir John’s work that he renamed the distillery after him in 1801. The estate was then taken over by Aubrey Fitz-Osbert Ward in 1918 and remained in the family until his son’s death in 1989. The French group Rémy Cointreau became the majority shareholder and bought the remain shares from Ward’s heirs in 2014. The rums produced are normally a combination of spirit distilled in column and pot stills, but the brand is also known for its single pot stills and triple distillations.

Last Ward is a 10 year old Mount Gay distilled in 2007 and bottled in 2017 in the Hampden Velier range. It was triple distilled in pot stills and bottled from casks bought by Luca Gargano in 2014 when Frank Ward sold the distillery to Rémy Cointreau. 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.