This next and final post on my Jamaica adventures (happily) consists only of things I tried. We’ll start off with…rum!

Jamaican Rum Factory

Rum Punch Made with Jamaican Rum

I had the opportunity to go on a tour of the Appleton Estate for a look at how rum is made. However, I think most people on the tour (including myself) were most looking forward to the tasting at the end. We started out by seeing the old methods of extracting cane juice from sugar cane and separating the brown sugar and molasses. We then got to see their “new” distillery and aging rooms. We were able to taste 5 or 6 different Appleton products, all of which were very good and quite strong. Appleton makes their own versions of a number of alcohols you may be familiar with, such as Coco (Malibu), Rum Cream (rum version of Bailey’s), and a coffee liqueur (comparable to Starbucks’?). An interesting tidbit: Check your bottle of rum for where it was made (Latin American country or elsewhere) and whether there is a number on the bottle. Latin American countries may list a number like “12″ to signify that the average age of the rums in the bottle is 12. However, countries on the British system, such as Jamaica, would list 12 signifying that the youngest rum in the bottle is 12 years old.

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I’m fresh off my trip to Jamaica, slightly sunburned, but wishing I was still lying out on the beach.  Because I did a lot of “touristy” things while I was there, I wasn’t able to try as much local cuisine as I would have liked.  So, this post will talk about a few things I did try, and a few I should have tried based on advice from tour guides and other locals.  First off, Jamaica’s national dish, ackee and saltfish (photo courtesy of flickr user galif548).

Ackee & Saltfish

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