Trinidad Distillers 2000 Swell de Spirits 24 Year Old Private Garden 50cl / Clos des Spiritueux

Trinidad Distillers is the production facility for the Angostura brand. It was built by the company in 1947 to produce rum for its world-famous bitters, in addition to distilling bulk product for export.

The distillery’s original set up was a single Savalle column still, however this was replaced with a five-column still in 1975, following investment from Bacardi who required more bulk rum. Two more of these multi-column stills were added in 1985 and 1999. Some experimentation briefly took place with a Vendome pot still in the early 2000s as well, however this was quickly sold to St Lucia Distillers by their shared parent company at the time, CL Financial.

The company was forced to divest much of its rum portfolio following the financial crash in 2007, but retains a majority stake in Angostura after it was bailed out by the local government to prevent what it felt was a national treasure being lost to foreign ownership. Trinidad Distillers remains one of the largest rum distilleries in the Caribbean, producing around 8.5 million litres per year.

This was distilled in 2000 and aged for a total of 24 years before being bottled by Swell de Spirits for Clos des Spiritueux.