St. Croix, the largest of the US Virgin Islands, not only has beautiful beaches, top-notch culinary experiences and a wide variety of great accommodations, it offers two distinctly different, yet interesting, rum distilleries tours for rum lovers – or those that would just like to learn more about rum.
Cruzan Rum and Captain Morgan are the two distilleries found on this, the largest US Virgin Island. Cruzan Rums have been crafted on St. Croix by the Nelthropp family for generations while Captain Morgan opened it’s St. Croix Distillery in 2011 and a visitor center on the site the following year. What does that mean for rum lovers like you and me? You’ve got two completely different tours to experience on St. Croix and you can easily do both in one afternoon!
We began our rum tour by getting a lift in Christiansted from Joseph, of Joseph’s VIP Taxi Tours (contact him at 340-277-6133). We knew we would be enjoying the rum drinks at the end of each tour and hiring a taxi is the way to go. Joseph was a great tour guide and was recently voted taxi driver of the year on St. Croix. He was warm and welcoming, and gave us some great info on St. Croix along the way.
First stop? The Captain Morgan Experience Center. Here we started the tour with a short and entertaining movie about Captain Morgan, then followed a tour guide through the Information Center, learning about the history and current Captain Morgan products.
Outside, we boarded a small tram to take a short tour through the distillery, learning about the distilling process along the way.
Once back at the facility, we were treated to two rum drinks of our choice and tastes of any the different types of rums, if desired.
At the end of the tour, you can peruse through the Captain Morgan shop and take home a souvenir of your visit.
Joseph was waiting for us outside and we boarded the van for our next rum experience. Just a short hop away, we entered the Cruzan Rum facility.
We were immediately taken by the Cruzan rum culture and our first view of a sugar mill surrounded by the flags of the seven nations that have ruled St. Croix – the most of any of the US Virgin Islands.
Walking up to the Visitors Center, we enjoyed the sights of a generations old facility.
Our tour guide took us through the actual distillery and we loved being so close to the process, smelling the molasses and watching it ferment.
In one of the storage rooms, filled with barrels and barrels of the delicious aging elixir, she explained the aging process and the color variations of different rums.
At the end of the tour, we were deposited in the Cruzan tasting room – not a bad place to be, where we enjoyed our choice of several different Cruzan Rum cocktails and again could sample the individual rums, if we wished (we did…).
After a few minutes of shopping, we headed back to find Joseph, who was waiting patiently for his, then, very happy crew, and we made our way back to our home for the night, Hotel Caravelle in Christiansted.
Have you taken the rum tours on St. Croix? Tell us about it!
Find out more about the rum tours here:
A special thanks to USVI Tourism Board for arranging our rum distillery tours!
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