Westworld Alberta
Issue link: http://westworldmagazine.ama.ab.ca/i/365611
and realize that on some level samuelsson is right: good food, good setting – what more do you want? ough the event's name – the Barbados Food & wine and rum Festival – seems to suggest that the island's favourite spirit was a late addition to the menu, the truth is that a party in Barbados without the local spirit is like a mai tai without the mini umbrella. (e strange diction is actually a nod to the event's magazine sponsor, Food & Wine.) e island has produced sugar since the British began planting cane in the early 17th century, and it's home to a handful of distilleries, including globally renowned mount gay. one of the first events of the festival is a rum seminar with Chesterfield Browne, interna- tional brand ambassador and mixologist for mount gay. i head for the workshop at the Hilton as much to find out what such an awesome-sounding job entails as to hear about rum. it's only 11 a.m., but the mount gay representa- tives are passing out spiked punch at the door, which has everyone talking and laughing before the semi- nar even begins. Browne, a jolly Barbadian with a full-moon face and the easy manner of a bartender, walks us through the lore of rum, noting that 17th- century voyagers carried casks back to europe as proof of their passage, which allowed the spirit to age and explains its long associations with sailing. St. Nicholas Abbey, a Jacobean great house on a historic Barbados sugar plantation, also serves as a rum distillery (opposite right). jenn judge