A two hundred year old water wheel powers the River Antoine Rum Distillery

We’re always on the lookout for unique experiences when we travel – opportunities to encounter things we’ve never seen before, or something rare that you can’t find in just any old port-of-call.

It’s almost a cliché to travel to the Caribbean and talk about “a journey back to the colonial past” but two experiences in Grenada this week had us genuinely feeling like we’d stepped back in time.

The first, was a visit to Belmont Estates where we toured a 300 year old cocoa processing plant.  Farmers from around the island bring their organically  grown beans to be cured and made ready for the dark chocolate craved by the western world.

First, the pods are split open (each one holds enough beans for a single chocolate bar) and the beans are covered in banana leaves and burlap for six days so they can ferment and lock in the smooth flavor.  Then they are laid out in large outdoor drawers or in a covered drying shed to dry.

Large sliding drying racks are still used to cure beans in the tropical sun

Workers rake or shift the beans with their bare feet by walking through the piles so they dry evenly.  Once they’re cured they’re shipped off to a local chocolate maker where the husks are removed and the beans are heated and made into chocolate.

The whole thing still operates very much as it did hundreds of years ago, with very little machinery or automation.  If you want to move beans from one pile to another, you shovel them into a basket, put it on your head and walk it over.

Fun fact: when cocoa beans are heated they emit large amounts of oil – more than actually goes into chocolate, so the excess is made into butter, beauty products, or more commonly – white chocolate.

The inner workings of the water powered rum distillery. Notice the lovely juice draining from the crusher.

Our second stop was the River Antoine Rum Distillery.  Opened in 1785, it’s the oldest continually operating (get this) water powered distillery in the world.

Yep, you read that right.  A gigantic water wheel powers a simple plant that pulls sugar cane into a big crusher, sluicing the cane juice into a room where it’s boiled (the heat comes from the dried cane matter).

The cane juice ferments for a few days, is heated again, and the alcoholic vapors are collected to make the rum we know and love.  Only this stuff is strong.   As in 150 proof strong.  In fact, Rivers Rum will burn if you put a lighter to it.  They have to water it down for the tourists because liquor with a 70% alcohol content is the strongest you can take on a plane – otherwise, I guess the bottles are like little bombs and the airlines don’t usually let you check those.

Cane juice is boiled to reduce the water content and increase the percentage of sugar content

Fun fact: rum is basically fermented sugar cane water.  It comes out as clear rum, and brown rum is due to the ageing process when it’s kept in barrels.

Want to feel like a pirate? Try a shot of the 75% alcohol rum on the left and see if you don’t walk with a stagger.