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| Hurricane Irma |
When you think about
the Caribbean you think about rum and all those famous rum cocktails. Irma and Marie have put quite a hurtin” on
the rum industry on many of the Caribbean Islands. Places like the Soggy Dollar, Foxy’s, Ivan’s,
Pusser’s Restaurants and ever=n the Willie were destroyed in August and
September of last year.
Pusser’s Rum, which is
now being distilled in Trinidad and Guyana escaped the devastation and they
still have a strong supply of rum. The
bad part is they lost all three restaurants and thanks to the fact that their
rum is being distilled in Trinidad and Guyana, escaped the devastation. The BVI-based Pusser’s Rum, where it was
founded by Charles Tobias in 1980, suffered catastrophic damage, including its
corporate office building and warehouse” members.”
In St Croix, the US
Virgin Islands, Cruzan Rum Distillery suffered some warehouse damage, but was
back in production after three weeks, while Captain Morgan “experienced only
minimal impact.
Roberto Serrallés,
sixth-generation distiller of Puerto Rico’s Don Q Rum, was desperate to get
home from the US find out how his company and employees did during the
storms. “We’re a family distillery on
the southern, Caribbean side of Puerto Rico.”
“We’ve been distilling for 152 years and have seen lots of strong
storms. This was different. It took us four days just to get a message through
and it took eight days to make sure all our employees were fine. Once everyone
was accounted for, there was then the process of getting back to business.” Destileria Serrallés was well prepared after
the wakeup call of Hurricane Georges in 1998. “We couldn’t let that happen again, as storms
are getting stronger and more frequent,” we have ensured that over the past
decade the distillery has not relied on city water, and can generate its own
power.
Puerto Rico is also
home to Bacardi, the giant distillery on the north coast. Just outside of San
Juan. It produces 80% of all its rum.
“The fact that they were up and running a week after the hurricanes passed
through the island, because they were we were ready for them,” there was no
damage to stocks, “Incredibly, we didn’t lose a single barrel,” he said.
Cuba is a big market
for Havana Club, whose modern distillery, built in 2007, was left undamaged.
Irma, the first Category 5 hurricane to hit the island since 1937. One
senior official reportedly described the destruction of the island’s sugarcane
crop as “incalculable”. I we look at the overall supply of sugarcane and
molasses used in Caribbean rum, this year’s hurricane season won’t have much
impact. “It’s a global commodity,” and is more affected by sugar prices rather
than the storm.
All in all the industry
came back very quickly and rum production was back on line with very little
disruption in the supply chain. Glad to
hear that so many are back up to full production and their employees are back on
the job.
