It might look like paradise, but beneath the surface, Appleton Estate hides stories of secret pipelines, colonial history and world-class rum.
WILL TWORT
In Kingston, Jamaica, an underground pipeline quietly pumps Appleton Estate rum from one side of the city to the other. Rum fans may be disappointed to know that the heavily fortified pipework doesn’t serve any homes, but moves rum between sites of arguably the most respected distillery in the Caribbean.
If you’ve never heard of Appleton, think of it as the Macallan of the rum world. Appleton Estate is a distillery with a history that dates back hundreds of years, a reputation for producing very easy to drink spirits, and is home to some of the most premium aged rum ever released.
So whether you’re a longtime fan or entirely new to the name, here are six things you might not know, but probably should, about Appleton Estate.
There Is a Hidden Rum Pipeline Beneath Kingston
What do you do when a major roadway separates your aging warehouses from your bottling hall? If you’re Appleton Estate, you solve the problem with a secret underground pipeline.
Although every drop of Appleton Estate rum is produced at their distillery in the Nassau Valley, Jamaica, most of it is transported across the island to Kingston for maturation. It remains in these warehouses until it is ready for bottling, which takes place at the bottling facility just across the road.
Beneath Kingston, a fortified pipeline silently moves rum from warehouse to bottling hall, while everyone above goes about their day, none the wiser.
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To move the rum between the two locations safely and efficiently, Appleton took a cue from Scottish distilleries and built an underground pipeline connecting the two sites. On the warehouse side the rum is emptied from the casks, vatted, and made ready for bottling. It is sent through the heavily fortified pipeline to the bottling hall. After each transfer, an inflatable ball is pushed through the pipeline using a vacuum system to ensure no liquid is left behind—another lesson learned from the Scots.
Appleton Produce Dozens of Distinct Rum Styles
Appleton doesn’t rely on one rum style, they create dozens using pot and column stills, then blend them like an orchestra to build their signature flavour.
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Most scotch whisky distilleries produce just one core spirit style using a single type of still which they then shape further through different maturation times, cask types, etc. Appleton Estate operates more like an American distillery or, to use a scotch example, Loch Lomond, as they employ both pot and column stills. Each still type creates a rum with a distinct character.
The column still produces a lighter, more delicate spirit, while the pot still produces a heavier, ‘funkier’ (to use a rum term) distillate which has more intense notes of overripe banana, pineapple, and molasses. But it doesn’t stop there. Appleton also varies the fermentation recipes that feed these stills, adjusting wash composition, fermentation time, and other variables to create even more diversity in flavor. These different rums are aged separately in their own casks before being brought together through expert blending.
In this sense, Appleton Estate rums are closer in philosophy to Johnnie Walker than Macallan. Rather than showcasing a single distillate, they blend dozens of in-house rum styles to create their signature profile. And that is not a compromise. If you think of single malt whiskies like Macallan is an exceptional solo violinist, Appleton Estate is a full orchestra.
All of Their Rum Is Aged in the Tropics
Aged under the Jamaican sun, Appleton’s rums mature up to three times faster than whisky in Scotland, but lose over 10% to evaporation each year.
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If you’re used to scotch or bourbon, you’re likely familiar with the idea that a spirit is aged in the same country where it is distilled. But with rum, those geographic restrictions do not apply. Rum can legally be matured almost anywhere in the world. Believe it or not, Liverpool in the United Kingdom has been a hub for rum maturation since the 19th century, when its ports were heavily involved in the transatlantic slave trade and Caribbean rum imports. This makes bottling and transport cheaper, but as any Islay fan will know, maturation location is important.
Appleton Estate understands the importance of climate on maturation and is one of the few major rum producers that matures all of its spirit entirely in the tropics. This has both terrible and fantastic consequences.
On the one hand, the high heat and humidity means that the rum matures at a much faster rate. As a broad rule, tropically aged rum matures three times faster than it would in the climate of Scotland. That means a 12 year old Appleton Estate rum is roughly equivalent in profile to that of a 30+ year old scotch.
Unfortunately this shortcut to producing amazing spirits has a downside; the cost is high in terms of evaporation, which can exceed 10% per year. As a result, Appleton consolidates its casks every few years to manage the volume loss. Rum from partially empty barrels is transferred into sister casks, which reduces the overall number of barrels available for aging far more quickly than would occur in the cooler climate of Scotland.
The Distillery Sits In A Rare Geological Landscape
I’ve visited a lot of distilleries over the years, but few, if any, sit in a landscape as dramatic as Appleton Estate. The distillery is located in the Nassau Valley, which lies within Cockpit Country, an area known for its a unique limestone terrain. As well as being stunning it is also incredibly rare, found only in a handful of places around the world, such as the South China Karst and the Moravian Karst in the Czech Republic.
Appleton Estate sits in Jamaica’s Nassau Valley, a rare limestone landscape that’s as distinctive as the rum it helps produce.
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While the Nassau Valley is surrounded by these striking limestone formations, the distillery itself is built on another rare geological feature, a polje. Polje comes from the Czech word for field and is the term for a large, flat-floored valley several kilometers wide, created by the erosion and collapse of limestone bedrock typified by the Moravian Karst. It’s a landscape as distinctive and storied as the rum it helps produce.
Dr Joy Spence Nearly Became a Nun
She nearly became a nun, now she’s one of the most influential figures in rum. Dr. Joy Spence was the first female master blender in the spirits industry.
WILL TWORT
In 1997 Dr Joy Spence became the first female master blender in the spirits industry. Today, Dr Spence is a national figure in Jamaica, a chemist, a pioneer, and a symbol of what’s possible. She has overseen the release of some of the most iconic rums ever bottled. But her path into rum was nearly detailed.
In an interview arranged as part of a press trip which I was invited to at the Half Moon resort in Jamaica, Dr Spence told me she nearly joined a convent. Luckily for the world of rum Dr Spence was an only child and her mother had other plans. Unhappy with her daughter’s decision, she marched Joy down to the principal’s office and insisted it was out of the question.
Joy Spence would join Appleton Estate, but the odds were still against her. At the time, there was a strong stigma attached to women drinking rum. In fact, Spence had never even tasted it when she first joined the company. Thankfully stigma has faded, thanks in large part to people like Dr Spence sharing their passion and love of rum.
The Estate Has Deep Colonial Roots
Appleton Estate sits in the heart of the Nassau Valley, and the distillery’s origins date back to the mid-17th century. Appleton sits on land which was originally granted to Francis Dickinson in 1655, following the invasion of Jamaica by British troops. The land was granted by King Charles II to Dickinson in recognition of his service. While that might sound noble, it was almost certainly influenced by Dickinson’s family connections; his brother, Edmund Dickinson, was the King’s personal physician.
The land quickly became part of Jamaica’s growing sugar economy, worked by enslaved Africans and generating profits for the Dickinson family. Like many estates in the Caribbean, Appleton’s early success was built on this harsh colonial reality.
Appleton Estate’s early success was built on land granted after the British invasion of Jamaica and profits from enslaved labor during the island’s colonial era.
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The earliest known rum production at Appleton dates to 1749. But it wasn’t until 1944 that the first branded Appleton Estate rum appeared on the market. By then, the estate had been acquired by J. Wray & Nephew Ltd., which bought the property in 1916. They introduced Appleton Estate Special during World War II, at a time when Scotch whisky was in short supply.
So there you have it, from fortified pipelines to the world’s first female master blender, six things you may not have known about Appleton Estate rum. Arguably mostly important to remember is that with such a variety of rums produced at Appleton, there really is something for everyone. So if you’ve not tried rum, give it a go, and if you’ve tried it but weren’t sure before, just remember there are a huge variety of styles available.
