At the top of Kendal plateau, you can't see the sea

But it's everywhere around you: you can feel it in the humidity, in the wind laced with sea salt coming up from the coast and in the coral rich earth beneath your feet.  

Stade's West Indies Rum Distillery chose this site for exactly this unique combination: centuries-old agricultural heritage and an ocean-shaped climate. A structure of stone and cement, designed to withstand the elements and built to showcase the precious and soon to be delicious contents of the barrels. 

"This plateau receives the winds from the sea and up here there is a lot of wind. It creates a very special microclimate, and that's why we chose it" says Alexandre Gabriel, Master Blender. 

The natural conditions here aren't a challenge, they're an advantage. The salt-laden wind however requires robust resistant materials for us to construct from but deliver a unique aging environment in return.

A warehouse designed for the future

This warehouse can accommodate up to 20,000 barrels, expanding the distillery's current aging capacity on the coast at Spring Garden, Brighton Beach. It addresses a logistical need, certainly, but it's also a choice of terroir. At Kendal, conditions are cooler, more ventilated and less exposed to temperature variations. Aging there will be different, perhaps slower, but more nuanced. This will all be studied and analysed by our team to continue to learn more about the effect climatic conditions have on maturation.  

This new home for our resting barrels joins a list of our other illustrious warehouses in Barbados:  

The original Bond No. 1 that was laid down when the distillery was first opened in 1893, making it the island's oldest legal rum warehouse. If you come and visit us, you can see it in operation and its open for you to come in and have a taste straight from the cask. 

We also have Bond No. 8, where barrels spend every day enjoying the sun and sea breeze right on Barbados’s West Coast. Not too far away we also have Sugar Bond, a former sugar factory up above the beach that has beautiful coral stone walls in a building originally built in 1859. 

With Dairy One our new warehouse here at Kendal - so called as it is named after a former dairy on the site – we are equipped with seven vatting tanks for blending and harmonizing the rum blends. Coming very soon on it’s heels is Dairy Two (earmarked for 2026), Stade’s West Indies Rum Distillery is mapping out Barbadian ageing, where each location imprints its own signature into our blends.

Breathing new life into an ancient land

Kendal isn't just any site. True to its agricultural roots, the estate is still a working farm and testing ground. Today, the team grows yams to regenerate the soil, sugar cane for future distillations and, very soon, 32 hectares of coconut trees especially for the Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards Best New Spirit of 2025’s Planteray Cut & Dry!

Under the direction of Jason Gibson, an agronomist trained in Cuba, who lives on the estate overseeing its management, the agricultural team has selected canes for their aromatic profile, not for their yield. In other words, canes made for rum, not for sugar. 

Among these varieties, Yellow Lady (B89447) stands out for its floral, fruity and slightly spicy notes. Others, like Lucky Cane (B882607), offer grassy sweetness and solid structure. All have been chosen and developed in collaboration with our friends at the West Indies Central Sugarcane Breeding Station who neighbour our estate. 

The Kendal warehouse reflects a considered approach to aging, one that looks at how physical place shapes the spirit.  

Built to last and designed around flavor, it embodies a rum-making approach that respects climate, materials and time.  

Those looking to understand terroir's influence will find plenty to explore here.