I decided I didn’t want to stay in Black
River after all. The accommodations were substantially subpar, and
the town itself didn’t seem to offer enough in terms of sightseeing or
entertainment. So I headed back into the mountains, with the goal of visiting
the Appleton Rum Estate. It was a pretty ride, and the estate itself is well
kept and attractive. I signed up for the tour, and for starters was offered a
chill rum punch while my guide was called in. The congenial young man took me
on a walk through the visitor grounds, where memorabilia from older times is
collected to show the visitor how rum was made. The distillery was established
in 1749, as the center piece of 1500 acres of sugar cane fields, nestled in Siloah Valley
The young rum is placed in oak barrels to age, and in the
warm climate of Jamaica
it ages four times faster than in cooler climates. During the day, as the
barrel warms up, the fluid expands and is forced into the pores of the wood;
some of it necessarily evaporates, keeping the rum from overheating, and the
fraction that is lost is variously referred as “The angels’ share” or “the
Devil’s cut”, depending on your inclinations. During the night the rum cools
down and is pulled into the barrel, thus allowing the wood to breath.
After 3 years the rum develops a slight yellow tint, from
the tannins in the barrel. At this point some of the rum is pulled out,
filtered, and sold as the white rum that some prefer for mixing. The rest of
the rum is allowed to keep ageing, taking more and more of an amber color as
the years go by. Some rum can be aged up to 50 years! The brew master then uses
up to 20 different batches of rum of several ages, to mix a consistent product
that is then bottled as 15-year, 20-year, or 30-year rum (meaning that a good
portion of the mix is up to 30 years old in the case of the latter).
Much of this I learned at the end of the tour, when you are
brought to the bar and parked in front of a row of different rums, given a
stack of thimble sized cups, and are encouraged to try as much and as many of
the different rums. What a delightful learning experience!
From there I headed farther up the mountain, to the village of Accompong ,
one of four independent Maroon “nations” within Jamaica . It was a hell of a climb
for my poor scooter, but I finally made it and was promptly greeted by a
representative of the Colonel (the elected authority), who collected my visitor
fee of US$ 20 and the proceeded to walk with me through the village, showing me
the key places (for example, the Harida Tree where town meetings and festivals
are held), and telling me about their history.
It turns out that the Spaniards had a good 150 years to import
slaves into Jamaica , many
from the Congo
region, and when the British took over the island in 1655 these slaves
retreated to the inaccessible mountains and from there fought a guerilla
warfare against the Brits. The great Maroon leader, Cudjoe, is remembered as
one of their heroes. Finally, in 1739, Cudjoe signed a peace treaty with the
British and the new Maroon nation was granted 1,500 acres where they would be
able to live, free and independent from the Jamaican government in perpetuity
in exchange for a permanent peace.
It is interesting that, to this day, the Maroon nations
retain great autonomy. They do not pay property taxes, elect their own leaders,
run their own schools, and generally manage their own affairs. They don’t have
a public source of water supply, so they collect rain from their roofs and
store it in big barrels or cisterns. On the not so great side they have no
representation with the Jamaican government and must handle their own public
works. I did notice they have metered electrical power and two cell towers, but
my guide tells me that they have to maintain their roads in a piecemeal fashion
(not very good maintenance from what I can see). They can apply for government
grants, but the process is very slow, and the last successful grant was given
over 25 years ago.
My guide’s name is Mark Wright, and all the other people I
met have English names. The practice arose from the slavery practice of giving
the slaves the same family name as their owner, but it is not clear to me how
it entered into the Maroon nation (they are not named Rodriguez or Perez). Mark
is a really nice chatty guy, who doubles as the native doctor with knowledge of
herbal medicine. The town also has a clinic with a full time nurse, and where a
doctor comes from time to time, again an anomaly in the workings of this
nation.
Mark arranged for my evening meal, which consisted of bread
fruit, ackee with onions and tomatoes, and salted cod fish. It was very good,
strongly reminiscent of “slave food”. Bread fruit was a welcome surprise: The
Brits imported it from the South Pacific, and it grows in profusion in the
humid climate of Jamaica .
It is a tall tree, from which a green bumpy fruit the size of a cantaloupe
hangs. They pluck the fruit and bake it by simply putting it on a small fire,
rotating it from time to time, until the outer layer is turned into charcoal. Then
they scrape the crust, cut the fruit, toss away the seeds in the center, and
presto, you have a doughy bread in the shape of cantaloupes slices. I made friends
with little Alguer, a 6 year old boy that was supper friendly, and he ended
eating from my plate slices of bread fruit topped with the mix of ackee fruit
and salt fish. Great fun!
I ended spending the night in Accompong, in a sultry room
without bathroom. I was also invited to the birthday celebration of Mark’s
14-year old son. The party was a village affair, with lots of loud music, and
did not actually get going until I was ready to go to bed. I stayed for the
singing of Happy Birthday and the cutting of the colorful and huge cake. The
main eating of chicken stew came later, and by that time I was already in bed.
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