Saint James

Saint-James dates its founding to 1765, when a learned monk, Pere Lefebure, set up a sugar factory and rum distillery near Saint-Pierre. Because France banned rum imports, he gave it an English-sounding name, Saint-James, to sell into New England. In 1882 the Marseille trader Paulin Lambert trademarked the name and introduced the squat square bottle, which saved shipping space and cut breakage. The brand still uses it today, decades before Johnnie Walker or Cointreau made the shape famous.

The 1902 eruption destroyed the original distillery, and for three decades Saint-James rum was made at other estates Lambert bought with the insurance money. A new distillery was built in 1929, and production moved permanently to Sainte-Marie on the northeast Atlantic coast in 1974. After bankruptcy in 1958, the brand passed through Picon and Cointreau before La Martiniquaise, which also owns Depaz and Dillon, took over in 2003.

Saint-James is well armed: six creole columns plus two modern columns process up to a tonne of cane a minute during harvest, with column distillate around 73 percent. It also runs a batch still for its Coeur de Chauffe, the only pot-distilled rhum agricole on Martinique, which falls below the AOC's 65 percent rule and so sits outside the appellation. The distillery has made the J. Bally brand alongside its own since 1996, and uses some molasses in partnership with Le Galion.

New rum goes into around 16,000 ex-bourbon and French-oak casks between 55 and 68 percent, and unlike Depaz, Saint-James does not consolidate same-age casks to slow the angel's share. The result is a staggering range, from five white expressions to many double-digit-age rhums. Two on-site museums tell the story, one of them described as probably the best distillation museum in the world, alongside a working cooperage. Rum-making is overseen by Marc Sassier, chairman of the Martinique AOC committee.

Saint-James is one of the most reviewed distilleries on the platform. The Saint James Les Ephemeres N1 has drawn over 200 ratings, while old J. Bally millesimes like the J. Bally Millesime 1999 reach 9.0/10, among the very best aged Martinique rums here. Because Saint-James releases so widely, from cane-juice agricole to indie single casks, there is a long ladder to climb.