TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin Toppers wins rum contest

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Has anyone here taken the tour of the distillery? I was surprised there was a charge for it. It was a long time ago I did it, but I thought the tour of the Bacardi factory was free?

We were there in August when they did the first TTOL tasting ,and they charged $12.00 they let you try all the different rums they market,they also had food as part of the tasting !!

According to the story, they are charging $20 a head for the tour. Just wondered what you get for $20.

I don't know the answer, but I do think that it's a cruise excursion. I'll ask Dave, who's running the tours.

Would be interested to hear what you find out, but the cruise excursion could be different from the walk up tour. That just seems like a lot of money just for a tour of the factory, even if it includes some free samples.

We went Thursday. Walk in tour is $20.00. You start with a glass of rhum punch. You go into a little room like a classroom and get the history of rhum & how the rhum is made. The whole lecture is riddled with jokes and is very informative & enjoyable. Everyone gets a shot of Devil’s blood I believe it was called which came with a story. Then you get to choose two shots from the flavors that are under development and not marketed yet. My husband & I shared so we got to taste 4 different ones. Wide range of flavors. My favorite was licorice that had a crazy name. From there we went to the production area. We saw it being bottled, the caps being put on by hand & a shrink wrap safety seal being put on by hand. Then you got a shot of each of the flavors they sell (maybe 6) and a piece of rhum cake. You can then go back to your favorites and have as many as you like. Before you leave you can shop for rhum, t shirts, shot glasses etc. We thoroughly enjoyed it & thought we got our money’s worth. My only complaint was you didn’t get to see it being made. There were excursion people there that were continuing on to the restaurant for lunch. I don’t know what they paid.

OK, sure sounds like the tour is pretty heavy on the rum tasting and most folks would be feeling no pain after!!! Driving afterward sounds dicey...

We just went to buy rum. We didnt pay for a tour, but you can see some tanks and they were putting labels on bottles. They poured sample cups of all the flavors including the standard ones like Mocha Momma and some specialty ones like salted caramel. If you drank all they poured, you might want to have a Driver. We just sipped. And Bought big and small bottles.

If I remember correctly the Bacardi one was free but you only get two drink tickets and the Cruzan one is free and you get two mixed drinks and get to taste 8 flavors.

TravelHat--we did the Bacardi tour a long time ago, but we certainly got more than two drinks. Just can't figure out why the cost for this tour. Seems out of whack.

When we did the Bacardi tour it was free. Had many drinks. Not just two

I think a Toppers tour would be neat to see, but 40 clams for the two of us i might think about. Bacardi definitely owes me a free tour! LOL

We did the tour two weeks ago and paid the $20/person, the history story of rum was so-so and the 8 samples of rum total about 2 shots
It's just a tourist trap to get people to buy rum, clothing and other stuff with Topper logos.
And they don' t really make it there, they flavor what they import and put it in fancy bottles.
If you want to see the a rum distillery go to Boca, they will show the whole process in back of the new restaurant.
The Topper tour was very misleading.

I agree it is a tourist trap but we had a good time and learned something. Didn’t you get to drink as much as you wanted? We certainly did. Why don’t you think the rhum isn’t made there? I know Ma Dou Dou isn’t made in St Maarten but I don’t see how they can win an award if it really isn’t made there. What is Boca?

I may be learning something that i never knew.. Bacardi and Cruzan factory tours on SXM???? Where are they located? I have been going to SXM for almost thirty years...and NEVER KNEW that they had plants on the island. Info please.

Not in SXM. They are in Puerto Rico.

Have you ever tasted that stuff? Vile, sweet syrup.

Here's what Dave Herbert, who conducts the tours, told me: "The tour takes up to 90 minutes (depends on the number of people), a welcome Rhum Punch, a brief history of Rhum, our story, then they see the bottling and packaging, and 9 samples of Rhum. We are adding a little bit about barrel ageing but we have just started this so just starting to work it into the tour."

As to the cost, people are obviously willing to pay, as the tours are quite popular. They also have a cruise excursion that includes transportation and a visit to Maho beach to watch the planes. Not sure how much that one costs.

Ed--as Scubaman said, the Bacardi tour is in San Juan. We also went to the Brugal factory, which is in the Dominican Republic. I think at the Brugal factory, I don't think there was any 'tour' per se, but you could buy a bottle of gold rum for $2! The Bacardi tour was quite interesting, and you actually did see the huge barrels where the rum was actually made. That one, I would do again. I personally think I will pass on this one, as to ME, it's not worth the money.

I completely agree; not a fan of Toppers or their rum. Thankfully for our friend Dave, others are!

Which one - Bacardi or Topper's? Have had many of both and Topper's is very sweet so you sip it straight and have Coca Cola with the other.

We have done the tour many times as Dave is a good friend of ours. The stories are funny and informative. You are tasting some rhums that might never make it to market which make them special. A few of them are available for purchase. Always good to sample before you buy! The rhum cake is very tasty. We always buy some of the regular rhum to bring home. We think it is well worth the $20. If you don't want to pay for the tour/sampling you can certainly go in and just buy the rhum.

The name of the rum is Soualiga and is owned by the guy that owns the Boca Marina restaurant, Prestige Value, and Europcar car rentals.
You can find the rum at both Carrefour and Super U.
Most of the flavors are 80 proof and one that is about double that.

Correction, Most of the Soualiga rum is 40 proof and some more than that

Cruzan is in St. Croix. We did Bacardi in 2014 and we each were handed 2 drink tickets. I tipped the bartender pretty good and he didn’t look for any tickets after that.

The samples we had at Brad and Lora's party were very good Georgia. It was fun tasting all of them. Yes, some were sweet, but some were delicious! I like to have some bottles to serve to guests and share SXM memories.

Elizabeth, I guess that's why they make chocolate and vanilla, lol. I didn't like them at all.

They won but based on what best flavors? Theres like 6 flavors