The rum making process involves several stages. Our exhibition is based around a video presentation showing exactly how rum is still made on the island of Grenada. The modern system is very similar to that used on the old plantations.
First, raw cane sugar would be cut from the plantations and delivered to the factories in convoys of carts to be crushed between heavy rollers or grinding wheels. The crushed cane stalks, known as bagasse would then be taken to the sugar workshop where it would be used as fuel in the boiling process.
The juice had to be clarified. This was achieved by boiling it in huge vats and adding lime juice to create a sticky fluid. The clarified liquid would then be ladled into a number of progressively smaller and hotter vats which would then be placed on special trays for cooling. Sugar would eventually form in brown crystals on top of a brown residue known as molasses. The whole lot would then be filtered through perforated barrels where the molasses would drain off, leaving behind sugar. The molasses was then fermented and distilled into rum.
Our video shows this process being used in a modern setting and will give you a true insight into skills and techniques which have barely changed for hundreds of years.
But of course, this process required labour; slave labour. To begin our story of the slaves forced to work the sugar plantations of the New World let us first visit an African village where their terrible journey began.
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