Cruise The World With Us 2026

Saturday – January 17, 2026 – Georgetown

Today’s featured photo is a selfie of us with Clark’s Court hard hats. We were required to wear these when we visited this rum distillery today.

The Caribbean is known for rum and pirates. Jan and I hadn’t been to a distillery since our trip to Cruzan Rum on the island of St. Croix in the 1980’s. The excursion was also to include some time at a beach so it sounded like something all of us might enjoy. After taking only 2 doses of the antibiotic my foot felt great, so I was anxious to get off the ship and enjoy Grenada.

It was a short ride from the dock to the Clark’s Court Distillery where we would learn how rum is made. Our tour started with everyone being fitted with a hard-hat – as seen in the featured photo for today. Sugar cane was the main ingredient in the past and was harvested on the island, then brought to the distillery and dumped into a large bin. From the bin there was a conveyor belt that brought the cane past blades that would slice the cane into small pieces and transport those pieces into the factory. Today the distilling process uses molasses purchased either on the island or elsewhere. The molasses is stored in large tanks outside the processing building.

At this distillery rum is not being made every day. A batch had been finished several weeks before our arrival so we didn’t get to see all the steps but did get an explanation of those steps. Once there is a source of sugar it is combined with yeast and water in a large “mash” tanks inside the processing building and allowed to ferment. This process takes a couple weeks. The fermented liquid is now called a “wash” and is distilled to remove impurities.

Distilled rum is clear – aged rum has an amber color which it gets from storage in charred oak barrels. Many times, these barrels have been used to make bourbon. The rum can be bottled at any stage after distillation at the discretion of the producer. We saw and sampled various rums in the store at the end of the tour. We purchased a bottle of passion fruit rum and brought it back to the ship for later consumption. If you’d like to read more about rum, click on this link.

We boarded our bus and headed for the beach – Morne Rouge Beach to be precise. We had not brought swimming suits but did have towels from the ship. Chairs were not furnished so we rented 3 and set up to relax. Almost immediately it began to rain. We covered ourselves with the towels and waited out the rain. After a few minutes of sunshine, it rained again. So, cover and wait. 10 minutes of sun and it rained a third time – but this time it didn’t look like it was going to stop. We gathered our stuff and headed to the Beach X-Scape Bar & Grill where we could remain during any further rain. Eventually the rain did stop. While we waited we watched geckoes running near the bar. There is a photo of one of them in the gallery.

Back on the bus we returned to the ship and were forced to walk through a shopping mall to get to the pier. We did some shopping, walked to the boarding point, cleared security and returned to our cabin with our bottle of rum and a couple t-shirts.

The entertainment this evening was dancing which hi-lited many spots in the Caribbean. If you view the gallery you will see an explanation in multiple languages (English is upper left) of the dances. The dancers were high-spirited and put on a nice show.

You can view today’s photos here.