Habitation Clément — Attraction in Le Marin

Best rhum in the Caribbean. And easily the most worthwhile distillery tour(non-winery)we had to pay for. We’ve done a bunch of these, a couple in Martinique, a few in Barbados, one in Ecuador, and some in the southern EU, in Sicily and Iberia. Most of these deals, you end up racing thru the maze of tourists, and arrive at the endis either a gift shop or tasting room, and are lucky to have 3-4 inclusive tasting flights. The walk through the well-manicured Clément property, of spectacular trees, tropical looking gardens, and a couple of colonial residences, that were converted ‘museums’, for the publc. It felt like it was the Disney World of all the previous spirits’ venues we visited. Certainly tops a standard, repetitive guided tour, usually being led thru old defunct stills n’ machinery buildings, and often includes unnecessary regimented lectures on the process of creating alcohol. For the grand finale, their tasting room surpassed all expectations, as it reset the benchmark for all future boozery tours. The Clément staff dove deep into the “library” and offered us all seeming every last iterations their Rhum Plantation sells. Single barrel, Quadrupple barrel, Barrel city, an interesting white agricole, even an overpriced limited release bottle, truthfully appeared to be a graphic artist’s collaboration w/Clément to jazz up the presentation on their basic rhum, and their prized, aged blends. Their best bottle, The Homere Cuvée, which we all appreciated that we even got to sample, was the best bottle on the island. The smoothness was less rum-like, and more saucy like a very...

It is a Rum Plantation, need I say more. This all was started by a physician named Homere Clement in 1887. After Charles Clement perfected and bottled the rhum agricole, it was exported to France in the 1940’s.

They have plaques all around the place explaining what you are seeing. You even have the ability to see where the politicians met here like President GW Bush and Mitterand. With our tour group, we ran through the plantation in about 30 minutes. There is plenty to see, so if you are on your own, then expect a little longer time to take it all in. I loved the Rum Barrels as you could smell the yummy goodness. It really is interesting seeing the olde parts of the facility that is used to make the Rum. They even have sugar cane farms nearby. Though most of the Sugar Cane is gathered by machine, a small percentage is done by hand for those special rums.

Near the end of the tour of the place, you enter a building where you can smell the aroma of the rum notes. There was a door open next to each station. Inside you would find what rum you were smelling and a recipe card for using it for a mixer.

We were provided with a tasting and I wish I could have gotten more to take home. The store had a large selection of what they sell. Some of them even had real fruit in the bottles. I wanted the Elixir (high end), but I was only allowed the Creamy Vanilla [think Baileys with Rum]. It does make it a pain that you are limited on how much alcohol you can bring back...

This is a very fun Rum distillery to visit. I am unsure of the cost of the tours or the actual rum, because when I visited it was a holiday for the island and they offered free self-guided tours, and a large amount of samples. Right outside the building there is an amazing outdoor viewing or museum of sculptures and art. The entire building and its surrounding is very well maintained and a great spot to relax. After your tour of the distillery, there is a gallery of art around the corner. I was not expecting to view all of a distillery, art, and a museum of sculptures at this single location. It is a self-guided tour, and they have bulletins that provide information in different languages, including English. My favorite part of the tour was being able to explore the barrel aging buildings. The Barrel rooms gave off an amazing scent that I just want as aftershave! During the venture of the tour, you will learn how they used to make rum with old school style tools, and the way they make rum today. They have a large selection of merchandise, and rum you can purchase. The tasting room is pretty packed, but the bartenders know a variety...