Cruzan Rum Distillery
The two fuzzy pictures on the left are huge open tanks of rum fermenting, seen from atop a dim catwalk -- the sweet smell there was by itself intoxicating. The two sharper pictures on the right show later stages in the rum manufacturing process. We were told that the rum was bottled off island, in Florida I think the guide said. We were surprised, though, that the barrels are emptied into metal tanks that are shipped out, instead of shipping out the barrels.
After the 15 minute $5 tour the guide, a woman who didn't drink, served much too big cups (at least 4 ounces of rum on ice) of our choice from the different kinds of Cruzan brand rum. My favorite was Cruzan Rum Cream, because of it smoothness and lower alcohol (17%), but the stronger tasting Cruzan Blackstrap Rum also tasted good (however it's 40% alcohol was too much for me). I drank only half of my mixture of Blackstrap and Cream and still felt walloped.
Cruzan Rum is very cheap in St. Croix, either at the factory or in the grocery stores. Black Strap Rum is only $8 for a 750 ml. bottle. Cruzan Rum Cream is $14 a bottle. There's no sales tax in St. Croix and we could have brought back up to 6 bottles duty free with us (but we didn't -- it could have been a security hassle on the airplane and, more to the point, wanting more of its good taste didn't seem like a habit we wanted to get into).
Here's some customer's reviews of Cruzan Rum. I was surprised by the latest review that said the factory or distillery has a new owner and that the quality has since dropped quite a bit. www.igougo.com/attractions-reviews-b21372-St._Croix-Cruza...
You've probably heard of tropical lethargy, which we happened to read about again there in several historical novels by local author, Patricia Gill. While our home state of Florida (Tallahassee) was shivering with record lows (down to 14 degrees) we were feeling the constant high humidity in the St. Croix rain forest, with lows not much under 70 in the mornings and highs usually at least in the mid 80s. But after tasting the Cruzan factory's good rum and seeing its cheap prices we suspected that climate isn't the only reason for tropical lethargy.
Perhaps one kind of tropical lethargy is "island time," or as its called in St. Croix, Crucian time. An example of it was on one of the 12 days Christmas Festival the starting time of the Adult Parade was always scheduled to start at 10 a.m. but we were told it never actually began until about 1 p.m. We also ran into Cruzan time when we occasionally found stores closed in the middle of the afternoon, though sometimes that was probably more a result of the Great Recession. One of the great things about Polly's at the Pier (besides its coffee and brownies) was that it was usually open. One of its co-owners, a man from Iowa, said he made it a point of being dependably open. He said people there told him he could not make a go of it, but Polly's seemed to have plenty of regular customers and not only from the cruise ships.
Cruzan Rum Distillery
The two fuzzy pictures on the left are huge open tanks of rum fermenting, seen from atop a dim catwalk -- the sweet smell there was by itself intoxicating. The two sharper pictures on the right show later stages in the rum manufacturing process. We were told that the rum was bottled off island, in Florida I think the guide said. We were surprised, though, that the barrels are emptied into metal tanks that are shipped out, instead of shipping out the barrels.
After the 15 minute $5 tour the guide, a woman who didn't drink, served much too big cups (at least 4 ounces of rum on ice) of our choice from the different kinds of Cruzan brand rum. My favorite was Cruzan Rum Cream, because of it smoothness and lower alcohol (17%), but the stronger tasting Cruzan Blackstrap Rum also tasted good (however it's 40% alcohol was too much for me). I drank only half of my mixture of Blackstrap and Cream and still felt walloped.
Cruzan Rum is very cheap in St. Croix, either at the factory or in the grocery stores. Black Strap Rum is only $8 for a 750 ml. bottle. Cruzan Rum Cream is $14 a bottle. There's no sales tax in St. Croix and we could have brought back up to 6 bottles duty free with us (but we didn't -- it could have been a security hassle on the airplane and, more to the point, wanting more of its good taste didn't seem like a habit we wanted to get into).
Here's some customer's reviews of Cruzan Rum. I was surprised by the latest review that said the factory or distillery has a new owner and that the quality has since dropped quite a bit. www.igougo.com/attractions-reviews-b21372-St._Croix-Cruza...
You've probably heard of tropical lethargy, which we happened to read about again there in several historical novels by local author, Patricia Gill. While our home state of Florida (Tallahassee) was shivering with record lows (down to 14 degrees) we were feeling the constant high humidity in the St. Croix rain forest, with lows not much under 70 in the mornings and highs usually at least in the mid 80s. But after tasting the Cruzan factory's good rum and seeing its cheap prices we suspected that climate isn't the only reason for tropical lethargy.
Perhaps one kind of tropical lethargy is "island time," or as its called in St. Croix, Crucian time. An example of it was on one of the 12 days Christmas Festival the starting time of the Adult Parade was always scheduled to start at 10 a.m. but we were told it never actually began until about 1 p.m. We also ran into Cruzan time when we occasionally found stores closed in the middle of the afternoon, though sometimes that was probably more a result of the Great Recession. One of the great things about Polly's at the Pier (besides its coffee and brownies) was that it was usually open. One of its co-owners, a man from Iowa, said he made it a point of being dependably open. He said people there told him he could not make a go of it, but Polly's seemed to have plenty of regular customers and not only from the cruise ships.