How to Drink Mount Gay Rum with Trudiann Branker

Can you feel the heat on your face?  This episode we want to transport you right to the sunny island of Barbados. Anyone’s guess which rum we’ll be exploring??

If you haven’t guessed already, it’s Mount Gay, not only the oldest rum in Barbados, but the oldest rum in the world!!  I’m thrilled that Trudiann Branker, the trailblazing Master Blender, is joining us.

Starting at the distillery in 2014 as Quality Assurance Manager, Trudiann rose to prominence with her unique ability to merge scientific expertise and creative intuition. 

Under her guidance, Mount Gay has unveiled award-winning innovations like the Master Blender Collection and the Single Estate Series!  

We met at the launch of the Single Estate Series 2, and I couldn’t wait to have her on the show! Single Estate is super special, and it’s great to have her explain how it all came to be.

Watch it on YouTube

https://youtu.be/OVIDMgs7oxM

Cocktail of the Week: Cocohill

Please enjoy this transcript of my interview with Trudiann. Just remember that I own the copyright in and to all content in and transcripts of Lush Life podcast, with all rights reserved, as well as my right of publicity. So if you want to use any of this, please email me!

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Susan: It’s so great to have you on the show.

Trudiann: Thank you, I’m honored.

Susan: It’s fantastic. I can’t wait for everyone to hear what you’re doing because it’s pretty exciting. Why don’t we start off with a little introduction? Why don’t you tell everyone who you are and what you do?

Trudiann: Yeah, so I am Trudiann Branker. I am the Master Blender for Mount Gay Rum. And in being the Master Blender, I really create all of the Mount Gay liquids, and I coordinate all of the research and development activities that happen at Mount Gay.

Susan: I always love to go right back to the beginning to see how they got where they did. So, if you could tell me a little bit about where you grew up, and I’ll sprinkle some questions in along the way.

Trudiann: Definitely Barbadian, very proud of that fact. Never tried to hide the accent. I don’t think I could if I wanted to. I was born in Barbados. I went to school here my entire child life. However, coming on to 18 when it was time to go to university, I did leave Barbados.

I went to university at Howard in Washington, DC. And it was my first time going to the US. So definitely a new world there. However it was a real beginning with regards to, I would say my first love for Mount Gay would have started then. Having to take a gift, to people I did not know, I would reach for Mount Gay, not ever thinking that this is where I would sit one day. It’s a full circle moment for me. All through my school life, I was very attracted to the sciences, biology, chemistry, physics, math, and I really continued that journey throughout.

In my tertiary education at university, same study path, biology, chemistry, never once connecting the dots again, that this is where it would lead, but unknowingly setting the stage or providing myself with that base that would be used later. It’s really funny. People always say, when you’re in a class, you’ll never use that in real life.

One day you realize your whole career is based in a laboratory with the same look and feel that you had then, and that to me one of the best things to see; that there’s this real-life application that happens for all of those studies that I had. After I finished university, I returned home to Barbados because it was really important for me at that point to contribute to Barbados and to bring what I had learned externally back home. I started my career at local brewery.

Susan: Wait, wait, hold on, hold on. I have so many things to ask in between there. Before you get to the brewery, when you went to study science at Howard, were you thinking, have a long-term goal, like I want to be a doctor or scientist or anything like that, or you just didn’t really know? You just wanted to study.

Trudiann: I did. You know, I was still very much going to follow the path my parents had envisioned for me. I was going to be a doctor.

Susan: Oh, no way! I guessed!

Trudiann: That was the plan.

Susan: That was the plan.

Trudiann: That was the plan. It really was at that time. And when I left, I actually took a gap year before I was supposed to go back to med school, funny enough. That’s when we kind of land at the brewery, but we’re not there yet. We’re not there yet.

Susan: When you got to the US, the drinking age is 21. So, had rum been, I guess this is such a silly question to ask someone who’s from the islands, but was it a big part of your life?

Trudiann: Yeah, it’s always around, but different facets of it, As you’re growing up, because the island is full of sugarcane, and you know of that relationship between sugarcane and rum you are always knowledgeable of how rum is made.

Eighteen is the legal drinking age or the legal consumption age, but it’s not that at 18 all of a sudden there’s this awakening that happens with regards to it. It’s more about the process and knowing behind the scenes that happens, because you grew up in an island where, like I said, there’s sugarcane everywhere.

I would say, for me, it was definitely, as I got older, it was more of a gift to people. It was a representation of Barbados for me. It was always something I would take back for a professor or somebody, a piece of Barbados. That is what it represented to me then. as I got older.

Socially, you would go out, of course it would be the choice because it always resonates for me as being a very Barbadian brand and that to me was more how I saw it and how it evolved, many years later, when the opportunity presented itself to be a member of the Mount Gay family, of course,

Susan: Of course. Of course.

Trudiann: In my mind, this is the opportunity of a lifetime to really become a member of the Mount Gay family and represent a brand that in my mind, so Barbadian, but we’re not there yet either.

Susan: Alright, so you go back, and your first job is in a brewery.

Trudiann: So, I come back to Barbados and, as usual you’re taking a year off, but you’ve still got to do something. I started working at the local brewery and I think that that’s really everything changed. where manufacturing became a part of a career path that I fell in love with.

The production, the process to go through from raw material, the science involved with yeast transforming these sugars into alcoholics, it all resonated so naturally. I was enthusiastic to go every day to study more, to become part of this. I think after maybe a week after joining the brewery I was at that point where it was like, this is it. I think this is the career path for me.

 I still didn’t think about Mount Gay yet. We weren’t even thinking about it at that point, but as I spent a few more years and I went moved from being the brewer to supply chain, to quality assurance, and really understanding all the different facets of the process.

It’s where I was able to make choices to focus on things like the taste and the organoleptics: the nose, the taste, how we develop them, what happens at each stage. I think right there was the turning point where it became that this was the direction that pointed me towards Mount Gay right then.

Susan: I would hate to be a fly on the wall in the conversation of Mom, Sad, I’m not going to be a doctor. I am going to work in the brewery. I’m sure that that was fine.

Trudiann: I would say this, it was definitely not the easiest conversation I’ve ever had with them. However, I think it became significantly better when I became the Master Blender at Mount Gay when they were like, yeah, of course we love this.

Susan: Listen, I totally understand. My dad was like, are you sure you don’t want to be a lawyer? I was like, Yeah, Dad, I’m sure.

Trudiann: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Susan: So, I totally understand. So, tell me about the opportunity to join Mount Gay. Was it from the brewery to Mount Gay? What pulled you there?

Trudiann: In 2014, Remy Cointreau was able to acquire the physical distillery. Prior to that, they had owned the brand, the bottling facility, and all the aging facilities, but not the distillery itself. That was really where the opportunity presented itself because, having spent a few years at the brewery, maybe approximately eight or so, really my focus was fermentation as well as organoleptics associated with fermentation specifically.

It was just a great opportunity to be able to come and to bring that specialty to the Mount Gay team and really help them with regards to starting up this new distillation process and kind of molding it into what Mount Gay needed it to be.

That’s how we started. I would have come in as the Quality Assurance Manager here at Mount Gay when we took on a brand-new process, distillation. We’ll get further into all the other processes we’ve taken on over the years, but it was really the opportunity to have that developed and reconnect what had been done in the past with where we needed to go in the future to make sure that the Mount Gay liquids would always be at the quality that everyone knows and loves.

Susan: There’s so much in there. Why don’t you tell people a little bit about the history of Mount Gay so we can kind of go backward to go forward.

Trudiann: Mount Gay is 321 years old. So, for the last 300+ centuries Mount Gay has operated actually right here where I sit doing this interview in St. Lucie, the most northern parish of the island. It’s always been located in this specific spot. Whatever has happened over the years is, as you know, it has changed hands, it has changed owners, one thing that has stayed the same is where it is and how they do what they do.

Throughout the years, it’s very much been the passing down of very specific traditions – the art of distillation, blending coming in the latter parts of Mount Gay’s history. What a lot of people don’t necessarily know is even though certain aspects of the brand may not have all been owned by the same person, it was still one cohesive function where the distillery made liquids, which would then come to aging, which would go to the bottling facility.

That’s really how it’s always been. In 2014, when I joined, Remy Cointreau was given the opportunity to purchase the distillery to really bring the entire process in under one ownership. That’s really what happened there. It didn’t call for any physical movement of the facilities. The significance of it was very small. I think a fence was removed, literal physical fence.

What happened is that you were able to have one team that would be able to go from start all the way, distillation, acquirement of raw materials, molasses, all the way to bottling and through to distribution throughout the world. That’s really what happened, in 2014 when I joined. Shortly after that in 2015, we added something a little more to it, but we’ll get to that little later.

Susan: Yes, we’ll get to that in a sec. Just to clarify for people who might be slightly confused. Was there a change in the liquid at all? Or was the taste still the same? If you bought a Mount Gay bottle in 2013 and they bought one in 2014, had that changed at all?

Trudiann: Nothing changed because what was already part of the Remy group was all of the aged stocks, all of the maturation, all of the aging, all of the blending that was already happening. My predecessor, Alan Smith, he had been taking care of that, and before him, Jerry Edwards for decades.

They were the ones who worked very closely with distillation to be able to keep the consistency that was needed for Mount Gay. It was more paperwork than anything else. These were the stalwarts in the industry that they were the gatekeepers of Mount Gay’s liquid quality. That is definitely one of the things that is handed over from Master Blender to Master Blender.

Susan: As a new Master Blender, obviously you want to make your own stamp on things. So, what kind of things were you thinking of doing, and then what came to fruition?

Trudiann: I’ll say as the new Master Blender, I never once thought about the change. What is first in your mind is the consistency. This will be the same Eclipse, the same Black Barrel, the same XO that everybody knows. They will not even be able to tell that there’s been a difference, but that’s really not what happens actually.

When I became Master Blender, I was given a very unique opportunity at that point because we were at a stage where we really needed to relook at our entire portfolio and what we were offering. We did do some changes to the core products at that point.

Eclipse had little to no change. Eclipse had a label change, and that was it. What was clearly demonstrated was the quantum of barrels and the type of barrels. So, for me it was very important to have transparency, really explaining to each person each client what is in the bottle, the type of barrels we use, and things of that such.

XO, I’m the third Master Blender to make it. It’s definitely, I think, the one that I had the most angst, I was super nervous, about, but once again, I was able to add a third barrel type to XO to really enhance what was already there, not change the liquid, but really more highlight the specifics that make XO.

That was a great opportunity for me, but I think what surpassed all of those was the creation of the Master Blender collection. We never could have anticipated the following, how well that product would have been accepted by everybody. I think I’m on my eighth version, eighth release this year now.

The one that I think I speak about the most now is Single Estate. And being able to bring, not only an addition to the core portfolio that was a 100% conceptualized by me, but also having it be such a Barbadian offering and such a Mount Gay offering to add to that core range 100% made in Barbados with sugarcane that I can walk you across the street to the estate.

For me to bring something so transparent, so nuanced to the world of, especially, molasses based rum houses has been quite an honor, as well as to be able to bring it to, person’s all throughout the world.

Susan: I was really lucky to meet you at the Connaught when you came over and got to taste it. I love the Single Estate story. If you could go really from A to Z. What it actually means, what a single estate, how did it get in the bottle, all of that stuff, that would be great.

Trudiann: Yeah, we’re going to do that, but you know, you’ve heard me I can do that for like two hours

Susan: All right, not the two-hour version, maybe the half an hour version.

Trudiann: Single Estate really started in or really was reborn, I should say, in 2015. In 2015, Mount Gay was able to acquire an estate, a sugar cane estate, right across the street, from the distillery and in acquiring this, we were for the very first time in many, many years able to complete the entire value chain with regards to soil to sip where rum was concerned.

By doing this, what we were able to do is grow sugarcane, bring Barbadian know-how, Barbadian expertise, into helping us grow the sugarcane. You’ve heard me say before we became farmers and I’m very proud because to have that skill set become part of the team is really an asset to the Mount Gay construct in total.

Single Estate, specifically, is a rum made from 100% Mount Gay molasses which has been grown at the estate. It is such a rarity that you are able to connect your entire traceability specifically to where the cane was grown, what cultivars were grown, which plots were harvested, what the entire years’ worth of process was in terms of rainfall and all these other metrics, and to be able to have all of that information, to be able to have access to the sugar cane from this specific place, which is then converted into molasses still here on site and now here at Mount Gay. I can walk you from estate to mill to fermentation to distillation and aging. It really is a very nuanced way to think about rum, especially like I said, molasses-based rum.

That is effectively what Single Estate is. Single Estate is 100% Mount Gay molasses which has been fermented, distilled in our pot stills, and aged here at Mount Gay, and then bottled and released. We’ve done two releases thus far, but what makes these releases specifically unique is the transparency that goes behind each and every one of them.

When you are ready to experience what Single Estate is, you not only have a beautiful liquid, which is a given, but you’re also able to walk the walk that we walked over the five years before this rum became liquid and started as cane. You’re able to understand what the conditions were, how much cane was harvested, how much molasses was made, what the profile was as we went through every step.

For me, I think that that’s the piece that makes me the happiest about Single Estate, being able to take everybody on that journey with me as you go from planting all the way to liquid creation. That really embodies what Single Estate, a wholly Mount Gay product.

Susan: When you acquired this land with the sugar cane on it, which must have been so exciting for a scientist to be like, Oh, I can play with this, did you use the sugar cane that was already there.

Were you already, sorry, I’m going to bombard you with a billion questions right now. Was the soil the way you wanted it to be? Did you have to change things? Are you growing some sugar cane like this and is there an A sugar cane and ta B sugar cane to play with it. I mean, how much was already there and how much did you kind of play with or are you playing with?

Trudiann: No, these are great questions. First, yes, there was already sugarcane there. because it wasn’t a fallow estate, there was sugarcane. We did the very first harvest. We would have done in 2015 from sugarcane that was already on the estate itself. In the future years, definitely you would see change.

What we do is regenerative agriculture. It is really important to us to preserve the soil that exists at the estate because you want to be sure that not necessarily in my tenure but the next Master Blender and the Master Blender after that still has a healthy estate and is able to reap and to harvest sugarcane from that estate.

That was one of the major changes that we made – just converting to this very different style of agriculture because it’s really not the traditional way in which sugarcane would be cultivated or would be grown in Barbados.

Once again, we’re setting the example. Our estate is 324 acres, so it is a relatively smaller estate as well. One of the other things we did is specifically each plot has its own cultivar. In addition to that, we do have some cultivars that aren’t necessarily the best sugar producers as well.

We have a nursery, and that nursery is really important to us because it’s where we’re able to grow newer, or I wouldn’t call them newer because it doesn’t start with us, but different cultivars for what you would make traditionally find on the estates in Barbados. It also gives us that opportunity to understand how they grow and how they develop on our estates itself.

Susan: Oh wait, just one thing. What is a cultivar, just in case people don’t know?

Trudiann: So, one of the things that I learned when the estate team and the agronomists that we had here at the time, sugar cane is a cultivar and not a variety. This is the terminology that we used. I’m always super blown away when they’re able to speak on this and the knowledge that I get because I am the Blender at heart. I’m able to assimilate from what they know. So, as you can see, that is one of the benefits of that knowledge and that know how.

It changes how we all speak, how we all view what we do. It’s really brought a sensitivity with regards to when you move to the very next step which is molasses creation. When it comes to the distillery and I’m able to start fermentation, we’re really just adding to that knowledge train that we’ve gotten from each of these steps as we get to the next step.

It was just an amazing experience to be able to do that from beginning and definitely not the end just yet, but from beginning or creation to know where we have a liquid that represents all of that.

Susan: This may be a silly question, but, when you created the molasses and then you created rum from it, a liquid from it, did it have the flavor that you thought it would? Were you planning on a flavor? Did you even know what you were going to get? I mean, was it different from what you thought or the same?

Trudiann: It was definitely different from what we thought. It was very one of those unknowns. The very first time, when the molasses showed up at the distillery before we went to the process, we were standing around and we’re nervous, but we’re happy.

It’s the first time, this time it’s going to a whole different area because it has to be segregated, because we’re very, very careful to ensure that when we make Single Estate, only the Single Estate inputs are a part of the Single Estate process.

It’s not the C molasses, which is what you traditionally will get from the industry. Just in case someone who’s listening doesn’t know about molasses-based rum, it has been made with what would be a waste product of the sugar production process. And hence you get a grade which is called C molasses.

However, for Single Estate, because sugar is not our goal, we use A molasses, which you could say a different quality because there’s less sugar that has been extracted from the process, less processing. So, we’re all standing around as it’s arriving, you never believe 15 people watching molasses offload, which never happens.

It’s so automatic, but it was the buildup to something new happening, something exciting. I’d say for me, the biggest aha moment was during fermentation. Where all of a sudden, the notes that we were getting were very different from what we get in our traditional Mount Gay.  People were passing by and we’re like, Pineapple, is that what that is?

It was this bouquet of fruitiness that is not necessarily the one that we would get traditional Mount Gay. You walk on by and you’re going to get that, nice, ripe banana, almost like a red apple sometimes. We know to expect this. We know at which stage, how many days, what will show up. But this was a whole new experience where it’s this new molasses that we’ve never had access to before. Now we’re going through and so, every day that fermenter, the process kept going and that transformation of sugar to ethanol was a new discovery for us.

It kept going from there. The discovery started there. As we moved to distillation and were working very closely on those very first years, we really had one of the oldest, tenured employees here at Mount Gay, Reynold “Blues”. He was still working with us at that time so it was very exciting for me because I wasn’t Master Blender just yet, but the previous Master Blender knew he would never be the one to bring this to market.

This was really my very first project when I joined the Mount Gay team and I think that excitement alone, this very person who has run, I don’t know so many distillations on the pots that I can count, with me here, who is so excited about this very new product and the whole thing was, like I said, was just excitement, discovery, all of those things.

Year on year, I’ve just kept discovering because as each harvest comes through the process, as each harvest goes to age and we go back and we look and we understand what’s happening over time, it’s still a brand-new library of Mount Gay, Mount Gay cuts, Mount Gay aged rums that I’m still developing where Single Estate is concerned.

Susan: How long was it until you had it in the bottle?

Trudiann: The first release we had was in 2023.

Susan: That’s a while.

Trudiann: Yeah, it was a while. It was I like to call it one of the best worst kept secrets at Mount Gay. It was definitely the worst kept secret. If you visited, we definitely were so excited to show you the estate. The best kept secret in that it really was not something we spoke about in any sort of media coverage or any seminars or masterclasses, we weren’t ready yet.

That opportunity was amazing for the process team, for me to be able to get very familiar with this product before we even came to market and were able to explain what it is, how it came about. And in 2023, we were able to do the very first release.

But for the first release, I really wanted it to be an ode to Mount Gay. We still did a blend and chose to highlight the nuances of the 2016 and the 2017 harvest. Since then, we’ve done a second release in 2024, and this release is vintage. It is a single harvest – the harvest of 2018, quite a significant harvest as well because this is the harvest where you heard me mention previously.

We have that know how with our estate team having an agronomist here with us as well as the agricultural coordinator who’s worked many, many decades in this industry and they joined the team that year.

This was their first harvest as well. Now we’ve gone from being able, in two very short years, and that speaks a lot to how comfortable I was able to get with this process, to translate what we have done over the years to everyone.

To be able to go from a blend, and now, highlighting two harvests, really showcasing the uniqueness of having a molasses that was made specifically from the Mount Gay estate and then being able to showcase a vintage – just a snapshot of that specific year and being able to bring that to everyone.

You see, I mean, you can tell I get really excited when I have to speak about Single Estate.

Susan: Well, it is really exciting. It’s interesting because literally everyone has seen a Mount Gay bottle. Anyone who drinks any liquid, I think, has seen what a Mount Gay bottle looks like, but this looks completely different. Why the decision to go with something that really doesn’t look like anything that you’ve done before.

Trudiann: Yeah, because Single Estate isn’t like anything we’ve released before. I mean, it makes sense when you think about it from that way, but for many years, the specifics with how we treat the estate and the care and attention with regards to sustainability, like I said, choosing to practice regenerative agriculture, despite, it being more labor intensive in terms of the persons you need, it being maybe sometimes more financially aggressive because, there are certain things you cannot use that, and you always choose what is better for the soil.

When it came to designing the bottle, the team really wanted to encapsulate that mindset of the transparency that we have with regards to how we do everything for Single Estate. So, to represent Single Estate, we chose a bottle that is 70 % recycled glass. It’s exactly minimalistic in its labelling, but still very transparent.

Single Estate always will tell you what is in the bottle before you touch it. If you get your hands on one, especially this one, you’ll see there’s a code at the front, which says that it is the 2024 edition. There is a 02 because it is the second release of Single Estate and then it’s a vintage 2018 so the VT 18. We did it in two separate distillations, same molasses just two distillations about three months apart, so D2.

What the team has done is placed a QR code. When you scan it, you literally can get all the information associated with the entire process of making Single Estate for that year. It’s really funny when someone sits you down and they’re like, tell me everything that happened five years ago.

Susan: You’re like just go here.

Trudiann: Exactly. Then they take all of that information after speaking to me, after speaking to Kevin and the team at the estate, after speaking to the distillation team and it all goes there, so that every single person can go on the journey of Single Estate, because for us, Single Estate, it’s an amazing product.

It’s nothing like we’ve done before, but what is key to us is that it’s setting the stage for that transparency where rum is concerned.  You talk the talk, but do you walk the walk as well? For me, at Mount Gay, my ethos has always been, and the House of Mount Gay’s ethos has always been, let’s be transparent about how we do what we do.

If I say to you that this has no sugar in it or if I say there’s been nothing added, what you’re tasting is 100% from the barrel, from our ability to select the specific barrels to give you these nuances, then that is what it is. That was the mindset I took when it came to Single Estate, every single aspect that has gone into Single Estate is clearly there for anyone to see.

Susan: When you created it, how were you expecting people to drink it? To sip it and to add ice to it? To have it in your favorite cocktail? I mean, what were you thinking? Obviously, it’s super special. So, you wouldn’t want to just, throw sour mix into it. But how would you want someone to drink it?

Trudiann: For Single Estate, neat is always my recommendation. Neat, neat, neat. I like to say I make something for every occasion. So, if you want to make a cocktail, we’ve definitely got rums for that, as well because that’s key that everything has its purpose.

For Single Estate specifically, I would recommend it neat. But if you want to go the cocktail way, you can go from Eclipse being amazing in a rum punch to XO in a Coco Hill. That’s my go to. Sometimes when it comes to a cocktail very easy to make, and I don’t claim to be an expert at crafting cocktails, I always say, I respect people who that is their talent and their ability to showcase what I have crafted in such a different way I have complete, but there are some of them that are easy enough that even I can make them.

Susan: Me too. People are like, “Oh, you must make cocktails so well.” I’m like, no, I leave that to the professionals.

Trudiann: Exactly. exactly. I also leave that to the professionals and make very simple ones like when you freeze coconut water and pour some XO over and I’m like, gorgeous, gorgeous!

Susan: So, you’ve got to tell me what’s happening now. What’s happening next?

Trudiann: What’s happening next? So definitely there will be a third. You will see us developing Single Estate always staying true to the core, where the molasses comes from, transparency in the process, all of those things.

You will see some new things coming from Single Estate in the future because the idea here is to really build on what we have, what we know, and be able to bring everyone in a little more to the journey that we take for Single Estate. I can’t give away too much but definitely look out.

Single Estate is released around October so we’re very early in the year before we get there, but yes, definitely keep looking out for the for the Single Estate releases, they’re not very many.  Every year we do only approximately 4,000 bottles, because it’s key for me that we’re able to understand what is still happening with the rum as it ages and as that age progresses. Never truly depleting any harvest or any specific year, because we still have that journey to go on.

Susan: Yeah, I’m sure the magic is happening in those greenhouses with the cultivars.

Trudiann: The beauty of Single Estate is the magic is happening everywhere. We’ve got some magic happening at the estate. Every year is unique. Every year is different. But then we’ve got all these different harvests that we’ve transformed into rum indie bonds also doing their thing, it’s tropical aging.

It’s almost as if it’s this whole construct by itself that’s really happening. As I said we went from that very first one having, a finite number of barrels that we all like watching every day. We’re like, what’s happening? Is it happening?

We are good to know it being just so much a part of who we are and what we do setting up the tastings, monitoring year on year as we go by. I will say this, one thing has not changed, when it’s harvest, everybody is super excited. It’s almost as if a special celebration has come to the Mount Gay estate specifically and also to the distillery.

Susan: Well, I was excited to try the molasses. I’m sure that every single time I’d be like molasses, please. I do love it. I think the Barbados Tourism Board should just say the magic is happening in Mount Gay and that should be the tagline for the country.

Trudiann: I will say that Mount Gay has their harvest, but it’s part of a bigger celebration that happens in Barbados. We tend to harvest at the end of August, the country’s harvest. Right about that time, we have a celebration called Crop Over where, traditionally, obviously many, many years ago, it was a celebration of the end of the harvest on the island.

Crop Over is our carnival that coincides with the end of our Barbadian harvest and the country does come alive. So, we’re a small part of that bigger excitement that happens every year around that time.

Susan: Well, gosh I would love to be there.

Trudiann: I told you, come to Barbados, you come in August, July!

Susan: We are coming. Well, this has been so great. I am so pleased that we got to talk about Single Estate and so much exciting stuff that is happening. I think the people who created Mount Gay in 1703 would be super pleased by the fact that not only is it still around, but that you’re at the helm creating all these new things.

Trudiann: It has been great. Thank you.

Susan: Oh, absolutely. Thank you for being on the show. It’s been fantastic. Hopefully see you in London soon for another cocktail.

Trudiann: Yes, hopefully!

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