CAPTAIN MORGAN FINDS A NEW PORT TO CALL HOME

Adios Puerto Rico! Captain Morgan is setting sail for St Croix. Diageo USVI, the Virgin Islands’ rum distiller of Diageo, has opened its rum distillery in St Croix that will produce rum for the Captain Morgan brand in the US. For the last fifteen years Captain Morgan was produced in Puerto Rico and the move is not without controversy as the economy in Puerto Rico is hardly thriving. The rum maker also said that it will invest $5 million to build a visitor center at the distillery on St Croix. The center is slated for completion just in time for the distillery’s first rum shipment in early 2O12. Three time capsules were buried on the distillery site, and will be opened ten, twenty and thirty years from the date of burial. Construction of the 2O million proof gallon rum distillery began in August 2OO9. Diageo USVI has committed that at least 8O% of the full-time employees at the distillery will be from the USVI, and the company has created more than 6O full-time jobs to support the operation and management of the distillery, which was constructed with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification principles. Some of the ecological and environmental controls incorporated in the design include a closed-loop water system that will eliminate the need for any washwater disposal into the nearby Caribbean Sea.