Angostura 7 year old

Simón Bolívar dreams of liberating South America from Spanish supremacy. El Liberator turns words into action and as you probably know - you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. Tropical diseases are spreading in Angostura's (now Ciudad Bolívar) infirmary and the Surgeon General of the national liberation army, Gottlieb Benjamin Siegert, seems to have a way to fight them - a high-percentage spice-based tonic. Simón Bolívar recommends the distribution of the mixture to the troops.

'Dr.  Siegert's Aromatic Bitters' (soon renamed in smoother sounding Angostura) are rapidly gaining ground and so the inventor begins to conquer further markets. However the purpose of the bitters changes over time. Two hundred years ago it was purchased at a pharmacy (as an over-the-counter drug) mainly for use by stomach ailments. A hundred years later consumer activists led to the passage of the 'Pure Food and Drug Act', according to which products should be labeled reliably and adequately (and 'medicine' is here not accurate enough). Nowadays, Angostura is eagerly used by bartenders to flavor cocktails.

Bitter part behind us. Now follows the sweet one, because at Angostura efficiency comes first. If they already had to order rum for the internal use, why not order more to get better price as scale effect and then sell the surplus under own brand? Well, they did and it was worth it. Next maybe own factories? Done. They established Trinidad Distillers Limited as a subsidiary in 1949. To this day it's production capacity secures by far own demand and the surplus rum is sold in bulk.

TDL gets molasses mainly from Guyana, but also from the Dominican Republic, Fiji and diverse countries in South America. Rum is made in a five-column stills under the supervision of master distiller John Georges. Even if Trinidad and Tobago was a British colony, the production process continues rather the spanish colonial style, because of short fermentation and separation into light and heavy components for later distillation and subsequent blending. Angostura is aged in ex-bourbon charred barrels. Rum matures five years separately and additional two years as blend before bottling.