Guyana

Here is list of companies whose rum bottle labels I have in my collection
Araujo's Bar, Georgetown (1)
Banks D.I.H. (24)
Demerara Distillers (271)
Other (2)

High-ester rum is also made in Guyana, and at the Galion Distillery in Martinique where it is known as rhum grand arome, but Jamaica remains the greatest exponent of this aromatic art.

[Source: Dave Broom, Jason Lowe: Rum, 2003, p. 45]

Nowhere else could made "PM" (Port Morant), so when that distillery closed, its wooden double pots went first to Uitvlugt, and then in 2000 to Diamond, when DDL closed Uitvlugt. It's the same with the single-pot still, which went from Versailles to Diamond, again via Uitvlugt. Or the Enmore. Or the Savalles.

Guyana embodied the plantation economy. It is hard to imagine your country owned by a single corporation, but by the 1960s, the British company Booker McConnell was growing eighty percent of Guyana's sugar and made most of its rum as well, much of which was then sold through London-based United Rum Merchants, of which Booker was a founding member. Following natialization in 1976, the (Booker-owned) Guyana Distilleries (an amalgamation of the distilleries at Skeldon, Port Morant, Blairmont, and Albion, based at Uitvlugt), the same firm's Demerara Distillers (based in Enmore), and Diamond Liquors (the rum division of sugar firm Sandbach Parker) were brought under the umbrella of a state-controlled holding company, Guyana Liquor Corporation, headed by Yesu Persaud.

[Source: Dave Broom, Jason Lowe: Rum, 2003, p. 85]

While statistics are not readily available as regards the actual volume of the productive areas, sugar, rum and molasses which depended heavily on immigrant labour, one can easily see a trend in the quantity of exports during the years, 1882-1887 as illustrated in the following table:

YearSugar
(in hogsheads)
Rum
(in puncheons)
Molasses
(in casks)
1882137,89129,20917,120
1883129,59526,49020,214
1884139,24633,39312,854
1885107,02822,77310,384
1886124,28324,77320,001
1887149,86024,83919,006
[Source: Guyana: Land of Six Peoples, June 14, 2002]

In 1915, 116,223 tons of sugar were exported which was an increase of 9,086 tons over 1914. Rum was a by-product of the sugar industry. 4,698,230 proof gallons were exported in 1915.

Approximately, 3,000,000 proof gallons of rum were exported from British Guiana to the United Kingdom in 1915. The duty on imported rum in the United Kingdom was 15/1s per proof gallon on home made spirits. Rum was a by-product of the sugar industry.

[Source: Guyana: Land of Six Peoples, August 7, 2002]

In 1996 the quota on rum was removed after 20 years and the commodity has no preferential price advantage.

[Source: Guyana: Land of Six Peoples, cited 2004]

Enmore Distillery was closed in 1993 and Uitvlugt Distillery in 2000.


Demerara Distillers Ltd has been the only rum distillery in Guyana since late 1999. In the 1700’s there were around 300 sugar estates with a rum still in Guyana. By 1938 there were only 9 left: La Bonne Intention, Blairmont, Skeldon, Enmore, Albion, Uitvlugt, Versailles,Port Mourant and Diamond. After the government privatized the sector in the mid 70’s, only three distilleries remained: Uitvlugt, Enmore and Diamond.

[Source: Rum Revelations (relevant page), cited 2021]

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