It all proved too much for Mrs Ray. We were in St Kitts and Nevis for a week-long Caribbean break and on the flight over I’d wondered aloud how early each day it would be acceptable to start on the rum. I soon got my answer.
Having misguidedly checked in to the St Kitts Marriott Resort – a vast, half-empty hangar of a place complete with plump, elderly Americans whirring by on mobility scooters; an over-priced restaurant serving only that which was deep-fried; and a deserted poolside bar peddling watery rum punches and a casino that smelt of damp and despair – our spirits were further flattened by finding that the restaurant we’d been recommended for dinner and to which we’d walked in the driving rain was shut.
‘All happy now,’ exclaimed Mrs Ray with a beaming smile. ‘That’s what I call breakfast’
The following morning, after a sleepless night spent listening to stray cats fight below our window, Mrs R turned to me with disappointment writ large in those big, brown eyes of hers and said, ‘That rum you mentioned. Would now be too early?’
A quick cab ride and by 10 a.m. we were at Alfie’s Bar at Wingfield Estate where, amid the rainforest-covered ruins of the 350-year-old Old Road Distillery, local boy Jack Widdowson recently set up the Old Road Rum Company. They don’t actually distil rum here yet but import the spirit from ‘the most awarded rum distillery in the world,’ age it and blend it, producing 1,000 bottles per batch. The result is astoundingly fine. Especially when served as part of an invigorating Old Road Sunrise cocktail, made with Old Road Rum, Campari and ‘a whole lot of other stuff’ according to barman, Quan.
‘All happy now,’ exclaimed Mrs Ray with a beaming smile. ‘That’s what I call breakfast.’ Indeed, we both felt mightily restored. Even the Caribbean sun had finally decided to shine. And so, our slight false start completely forgotten, we proceeded to have a thunderingly fine week, crisscrossing both St Kitts and Nevis – the two Leeward Islands that comprise the smallest sovereign state in the Western Hemisphere, sharing a population of just 50,000.
We dallied at the Old Rum Road Co to take the first part of the Kittitian RumMaster Programme which involved nothing more arduous than tasting different expressions and marking on a flavour wheel which we liked best. My dear wife liked them all and passed with flying colours.
We then high-tailed it down to the bottom of the island to Hibiscus Spirits at Spice Mill for part two of the programme. Here we were more hands-on and, under the tutelage of owner Roger Brisbane, had a hoot blending our own rums with herbs, spices and tinctures and tasting the tongue-tingling results neat and in cocktails. I was rather proud of my Rumtini and that, too, got full marks.
Over the next few days we visited Brimstone Hill, home to a vast fortress built by the British in the early 18th century to keep the French out and had a ridiculously tasty lunch at Cooper’s roadside stop of ‘goat water’ (goat and breadfruit stew) and ‘cook-up’ (a dish of rice, peas and whatever meat can be found), served in polystyrene boxes and washed down with Carib lager and rum punch.
We had a hilarious, rum-fuelled trip on the St Kitts Scenic Railway; rode ponies at sunset along Cockleshell Beach and watched the flying fish frolic; got spooked snorkelling by a lionfish; went deep sea fishing and caught just one measly barracuda in four hours (‘It’s called fishing, man, not catching!’ explained the skipper).
We ate enormous, succulent lobsters at Arthur’s at Dieppe Bay at the northernmost tip of the island and ‘bussed a lime’ – that’s to say drank and hung out – in as many bars on the so-called ‘strip’ at Frigate Bay as possible, including Patsy’s, Shiggidy Shack, Monkey Bar, Ocean’s, Boozie’s and Vibes after which, thanks to a couple of puffs on my neighbour’s monster spliff in Inon’s Beach Bar, it all got a bit hazy.
We had a couple of nights in the gloriously comfortable and swanky Park Hyatt St Kitts (our suite even came with its own pool) and one in the impossibly chic and discreet Sunset Reef, where Mrs Ray caused a bit of a fuss by refusing to leave, so smitten with it was she.
We even managed a flit over the water to Nevis where we watched cricket, visited the thermal springs, saw the great tree under which Nelson married Fanny Nisbet on 11 March 1787, and learned how to cook red snapper and cornmeal with the head chef of Montpelier Plantation Inn.
Best of all, while waiting for the catamaran to take us back to St. Kitts and then home, we got completely sozzled at Sunshine’s bar on the beach. The signature cocktail is a Killer Bee, a rum punch turned up to 11 and of so secret and so potent a recipe that the bar staff won’t let you see them mix it. One’s plenty, two’s not enough and three you’re flat on the floor wondering who put carpet on the wall.
We both slept all the way back to Gatwick and shared our last miniature rum for breakfast. Happy days.
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