Angostura experiments with new sugar rum

DEFUNCT Caroni (1975) Ltd has embarked upon a dream project in which it has granted Angostura Distillers Ltd permission to construct a rum “Still” at Usine Ste Madeleine Sugar Factory (USM). Construction of the project is almost completed in which Angostura will manufacture rum directly from the sugar cane juice. The million dollar experimentation project which could see many of the 9,000 ex-Caroni employees returning to work is  envisaged as a resurrected sugar cane industry in which rum manufacturing will be the main purpose of sugar cane production.
Rum is traditionally manufactured from molasses and other sugar cane bye products. The Angostura research project will use only the cane juice, an experiment that will be the first in the world. A French company has provided the machinery and technology. Angostura confirmed to Sunday Newsday that the project was merely a research exercise to experiment making rum directly from sugar cane juice. Clarence Rambharat, recently resigned Chief Executive Officer of the newly-formed Sugar Manufacturing Company Limited (SMCL), told Sunday Newsday that SMCL entered into a joint venture agreement with Angostura to construct the rum distillery. The deal involves Angostura employing ex-Caroni employees, Rambharat said, if the research project is successful. Angostura is solely involved, not SMCL, in the construction/management of the project, he added, the end product of which is mainly for the export market.

Rambharat envisaged ex-Caroni employees becoming absorbed once again in sugar cane planting and delivery. Government last year closed the Brechin Castle sugar factory in a restructured plan to save the sugar industry from recurring debt. Nine thousand sugar workers were sent home in a Voluntary Separation Enhancement Plan in which only 60,000 tonnes of sugar will be produce by the lone USM factory. Indicating that Angostura’s management did not want to disclose details about the project, Curtis Mohammed, Capital and Project Manager at Angostura reiterated that rum made directly from sugar cane juice, was an experiment which the SMCL was very enthusiastic about.

“The arrangement in which ex-Caroni workers will be employed by Angostura, has generated a lot of enthusiasm by SMCL’s management,” Mohammed said. Angostura, Mohammed told Sunday Newsday, plans to issue a public statement about the project. Angostura once made a bid to purchase all of the former Caroni’s rum stock but the deal did not materialise when the then Opposition People’s National Movement questioned that a London-based auditing firm valued the stock at US$13million. SMCL’s chairman Prem Nanlal declined to respond to Sunday Newsday’s enquiries about the joint venture.