CARONI

The Caroni sugar factory was founded over a hundred years ago in Trinidad, the southernmost of the Caribbean islands and the largest of the two islands that form the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, a few kilometers from the Venezuelan coast.

At the

The Caroni sugar factory was founded over a hundred years ago in Trinidad, the southernmost of the Caribbean islands and the largest of the two islands that form the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, a few kilometers from the Venezuelan coast.

At the end of the twentieth century, the Caroni sugar refinery, with an adjoining distillery for the production of rum, came to hold over ninety percent of the sugar production of the entire state, until in 2003, upon a sudden decision of the government, it was closed.

The following year, Luca Gargano, the owner of Velier, the largest independent Italian company for the importation of alcohol, stopped off in a series of photographs of rum and the Caribbean, accompanying the great Fredi Marcarini, who recently passed away. Having noticed, however, that an artisanal manual bottling was in progress, he asked if there were still, by chance, aging barrels.
He was thus accompanied to a nearby shed among the weeds, the warehouse, also in a state of neglect. Inside, to his amazement, he found hundreds of barrels of rum, the oldest of which dating back to 1974. After sending some samples to Italy to be analyzed and verified their exceptional quality, Luca Gargano decided to buy the entire batch of barrels. . The bottling of the various vintages began in April 2005. The exceptional nature of the rum and the incredible story of a product practically lost and accidentally recovered only after the closure and abandonment of the distillery, have meant that the Caroni bottles have become a sort of cult among fans.