Foursquare

The Foursquare distillery was founded in 1996 by the Seale family, housed in the old sugar mill in St Philip, Barbados. Although the distillery is relatively modern, the Seale family have been involved in the rum industry since the 1920’s. The current owner of the company, Richard Seale, is a fourth generation rum distiller and is well known for his commitment to high quality distilling and sometimes rather forthright views.

The distillery prides itself on producing rums in the traditional manner, however, Richard is more than happy to embrace modern technology in the pursuit of what he terms as real innovation. Take the stills for example. The distillery employs both pot and column distillation. On the face of it the pot still is a classic double retort, but sitting atop of the pot is a small column which feeds into the two retorts, which are fitted with additional coolers in order to increase reflux. The still has also been modified to be run under a vacuum, thus allowing for a lower temperature distillation. This custom built still had parts fabricated in Scotland, Italy and Barbados.

This unique approach continues with the column still. It is an Italian built three column still, which can also be run as a two column still. The first column features a stainless steel bottom and a copper top, whilst the other two columns are stainless steel with copper trays. This approach gives Richard a great deal of flexibility with regards to the style of the rum produced at the distillery.

Historically rum produced in Barbados was made from molasses, but at Foursquare they use both molasses and sugar can juice. Partly because Richard disagrees with that statement and claims that concept of a rum made solely from molasses is actually a modern one. Historically, he says, Barbados estate rum was made from both juice and molasses. The second reason is purely economic. Richard has seen a decline in the growing of sugar can on the island and believes that there is a real possibility that Barbados could stop growing sugar cane altogether, so rather than depend on locally produced molasses and/or imported molasses, they purchase sugar cane directly from local farmers as well grow some themselves.

The third and final reason behind using two different raw material is that each raw material produces a distinct style of rum and gives the blender a wider array of aromas and flavours to work with. This is especially true at Foursquare as the bulk of the rums bottled at the distillery are a blend of both molasses and sugar can distilled spirit. This is not revolutionary, as many other rum distilleries do the same, but, where Foursquare differ is that they blend the distillates before filling into cask as well as blending after cask maturation.

The distillery is renowned for its Exceptional Cask Selection Series. The highly sort after bottlings feature rum that has been matured in a number of different casks, such as Port, Sherry, Moscatel and Cognac. However, do not refer to them as ‘finishes’ as that will draw Richard’s ire. He believes that the concept of flavouring a spirit with a finishing cask to be a big gimmick, and he would rather source quality casks and use them for an extended period of time rather than for a few months. Thus, the Exceptional Cask Selection Series is his vehicle for exploring how these casks influence the Foursquare rum and there is a good reason why these releases are called exceptional. The only problem with the series is that each release is very limited, and highly sort after, but you can still enjoy the fruits of Richards labour in the more widely available RL Seales 10 year old and the Doorly’s range.