April Auction starts Friday 12 April. Bottle deadline 8 April.

Rockley 1986 Velier

Lot: 5916

Rockley 1986 Velier

Winning Bid: £500
(Reserve has been met) This lot currently has: 9 bids

Currency Estimate

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Lot:
Distillery: 
West India Rum Distillery
Age: 
N/A
Vintage: 
1986
Region: 
Barbados
Bottler: 
Velier
Cask Type: 
N/A
Bottled Strength: 
46%
Bottle Size: 
70cl
Distillery Status: 
Operational
Production method: 
pot still
Base: 
molasses
product Details

Rockley 1986 Velier

Velier was founded by Casimir Chaix in Genoa in 1947 as a wine and spirits importer and distributor. By the 1980s they were still a small family-company with less than ten staff. This all changed in 1986 when it was purchased by Luca Gargano, a former brand ambassador for Saint James who was at the time still in his twenties. Under his direction, they selected their first single cask whiskies in 1992, and their first rum in 1996. In the decades that followed, Velier have gone on to become one of the most collectible brands in the industry, and Gargano has positioned them as the one of the foremost authorities and bottlers of rum anywhere in the world.

Although Velier nowadays have positioned themselves as one of the foremost champions of tropically aged rum (meaning rum from warmer climates being matured in the same environment it was distilled), their earlier releases were bottled from casks sourced in Europe. This one was bottled from cask #424 in 1997 by Thomson & Company in Liverpool. Velier had bottled its first Demerara rums the year prior, which were the catalyst for an eventual working relationship with Demerara Distillers Ltd; the fruits of which became their first bottlings of tropically aged casks in 2004 (alongside the first of the legendary Caroni releases). These 1990s bottlings are true collectors items and each represent an important step in the journey Velier took to becoming the sensation in the rum world that it is today.

This was distilled in 1986 on the Rockley Still, a a near-mythical piece of machinery. The tiny copper pot still was once used on the Rockley sugar plantation to make rum, and was moved to the West India Rum Distillery on Barbados in the early 20th century. It has however, been inactive for over half a century, with the distillery instead producing Rockley Still "style" rums. This is one of them, and no less of a rarity in its own right.

Known as the West India Rum Distillery, but more commonly referred to by the acronym, WIRD, this is a historic distillery in Barbados that has been producing rum since the 19th century. It currently operates four still sets, two of which are four-column stills. The newest of them is Canadian made, and the older one installed by English coppersmiths, John Dore, in 1975. The other two are pot stills, both connected to vintage rectifying columns, the oldest of which dates back to 1893. In the later 20th century the distillery was best known for its Cockspur rum brand, and in 1985 became one of the founding partners in National Rums of Jamaica, the holding company that owns Long Pond and a share of Clarendon. In 2017 however, Cockspur was sold off to a company called Woodland Radicle as WIRD was acquired by Maison Ferrand, a cognac producer established in 1989. The company had branched out into gin-making in 1995, and its purchase of WIRD completed its journey from independent rum bottler to distillers, following the introduction of its acclaimed Plantation Rum label in 2003.

Important Notice

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Please note: Due to the various ages of bottles and their seals, condition of liquid is at the buyer's discretion and no claim can be lodged against failure/leakage in transit.