Dear All,
I’m a bit late with this summary of our trip to Trinidad and Tobago and our visit to Angostura, but better late than never!
I can only say amazing things about this country. The people are incredibly friendly, the nature is beautiful, and the food is fantastic. There are also surprisingly few tourists, which makes Trinidad and Tobago feel like a real hidden gem in the Caribbean. But I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves!
Angostura is located in Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad, in a fairly industrial neighbourhood. We started our visit with a tour of the distillery, where we learned about the history of rum-making in Trinidad.
Our first stop was where the famous Angostura bitters are made. Photography was strictly forbidden here, as both the ingredients and the production process are closely guarded secrets. We were told that the ingredients are disguised using numbers and sourced from different suppliers. They even order additional ingredients so that nobody can work out the exact recipe. To make things even more confusing, the numbers assigned to the ingredients are changed regularly.
Here we got to see the botanicals, the maceration process, and the bottling line. Apparently, Angostura bitters are used for almost everything locally, not only in drinks, but also in cooking and even as a traditional remedy.
Our next stop involved tasting some molasses, which was surprisingly delicious!
From there, we moved on to the stills, which were absolutely massive in person. We were even able to taste some rum straight from the still.
We could only see the fermentation tanks from below, but their sheer size was impressive. After that, we moved on to barrel management. They primarily use ex-bourbon casks, and the barrel maintenance is still done by hand. We were fortunate enough to taste a 2016 TDL rum directly from the barrel here.
We also visited some of the warehouses, although there are many more across the site, before heading back to the main building, where there is a museum covering Angostura’s history as well as a beautiful butterfly collection. We finished the visit, naturally, with a tasting of some of their regular rum range.
Unfortunately, it’s not possible to visit the defunct Caroni distillery, but we did manage to take a tour of the Caroni Swamp. Seeing the scarlet ibis there was absolutely spectacular!
I’m attaching a few more pictures from around the island as well, just in case anyone gets inspired to visit. Trinidad and Tobago was a wonderful surprise and definitely deserves more attention as a Caribbean destination.
Please feel free to ask questions!
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