Baie des Trésors - Habitation Le Galion

All Baie des Trésors Rums are Rhums Agricoles and are made from fresh sugar cane juice. Like many other Rums from Martinique, they are AOC-certified. The neck of the bottle is labelled with information on the terroir, the barrels used and the vintage. The link to the terroir is also emphasised by the map of the Habitation's lands embossed on the bottle glass.

The Baie des Trésors product portfolio comprises four Rhums Agricoles. The white Rum Plein Soleil is bottled at 54% vol. and comes from the sunny Fond Basile parcel. It has a sweet flavour with a grassy, fresh aroma. For the Fleurs du Vent Rum, sugar cane from the dry and windy Spoutourne parcels is used. In contrast, the raw material for the Baie des Trésors Fruits des Pluies comes from the damp parcels of Dufferet. With the Baie des Trésors Karakoli, the company also has an old Rum in its range that has to mature for at least three years to be labelled VO and also comes from the dry areas.

Exploitation Agricole du Galion owns and cultivates an area of 500 hectares of sugar cane, almost 750 hectares if the lease agreements with small farmers are included. This makes the company the largest sugar cane producer in Martinique, with a share of around 20 per cent of total production.

Baie des Trésors pays particular attention to terroir. The sugar cane for the Rum comes from different plots of land that are only a few kilometres apart but have different climatic conditions. The Micholo and Fond Basile plots near Spoutourne on the La Caravelle peninsula receive little rain and are therefore relatively dry but exposed to the trade winds. The soil is rocky and shallow. In contrast, the Brin Amour and Morne Carrière parcels in Dufferet are exposed to relatively high rainfall. The soil here is deep and light.

Baie des Trésors does not have its own distillery. The Rum is therefore distilled in partnership and according to its own recipe at Saint James in Sainte-Marie. The preceding production steps - pressing and fermentation - also take place at Saint James.

The sugar cane on the dry and sunny plots grows slightly lower. However, the sugar content is higher. It is used for the Fleurs du Vent, Plein Soleil and Karakoli Rums. The juicy sugar cane from the moist plots near Dufferet is the basis for the Fruits des Pluies Rum.

Around 1,220 barrels are stored at Baie des Trésors. The Rums with sugar cane from the wet parcels are matured in French oak barrels, whereby around 35 per cent are new barrels and 65 per cent were previously filled with Cognac. American oak barrels are used for the Rums with sugar cane from the dry parcels, also with the same distribution of new and used barrels, in this case ex-Bourbon. It is important for the terroir theme that there is no mixing of Rums from different zones. The field and vintage are also labelled on each bottle. This means that the production process from the field to the bottle can be traced transparently.

The Rum made from sugar cane from the very sunny fields of Fond Basile is reduced to drinking strength by adding water in steel tanks for over a year and then bottled as white Rum Plein Soleil. This type of storage makes the Rum softer.

The name of the Baie des Trésors brand was chosen in reference to the Baie du Trésor, or Treasure Bay. According to legend, a Spanish galleon full of gold was sunk by pirates in this bay on the La Caravelle peninsula.

The Habitation Galion, on whose grounds Baie des Trésors is located, was purchased by the Belgian merchant Eugène Eustache in 1849. In 1863, he built a sugar cane factory, one of the first on the island of Martinique and the only one still in operation today. After Eustache's death, his son-in-law Emile Bougenot, who had previously managed several factories, became the owner of Galion. The factory began producing Rum in Bougenot's time, as well as Grand Arôme, which was also used for baking. The sugar cane came from the agricultural company Exploitation Agricole du Galion.

In the 20th century, the factory was modernised several times to increase production, contrary to the trend. Many other factories had to close due to declining sugar cane yields. In 1981, the Le Galion factory was finally taken over by the semi-state-owned company SAEM. The Exploitation Agricole du Galion is now exclusively agriculturally orientated. It was not until 2018 that the company returned to the Rum business with the founding of Baie des Trésors.

Since 2021, the Rums from Baie des Trésors can be tasted and purchased on site at Habitation Le Galion.