Single Traditional Pot Still

Single Traditional Pot StillRum

The pot still is the original still, a simple kettle that's easy to understand – boil some liquid in it, allow it to turn into vapour and collect some of it out of the top. A simple method of concentrating alcohol and the original method of rum production, brought over to the Caribbean by 'visiting' Europeans.

While it's a simple technology, rum producers all run their stills differently and consequently create a wide range of spirits. Add to that weird and wonderful stills made out of everything from the more usual copper to the incredibly rare wood, as well as a host of retorts and other additions to the distillation process, and you've got a whole world of different rums. Ranging from the rustically grassy and herbal clairin of Haiti to the weighty wooden-still spirit from Guyana's Diamond distillery and Worthy Park's fruity Jamaican rum, these rums demonstrate the pot still's impressive versatility.

That versatility, along with the variations in flavour and character it produces, are why we've divided pot still rums into the separate Single Traditional Pot Still category: rum from one distillery, distilled in pot stills and showing the style of that distillery. While the flavours might be different between distilleries, with pot still you can always be sure there's going to be heaps of character: they can be excellent sipping rums as well as punchy mixers that will shine through whatever they're paired with.