It’s small, intimate, as much a library as a bar. The shelves are filled with rare bottling of the Caribbean’s greatest rums. There’s a walk-in humidor around the corner. A small bar counter. Beautiful leather chairs. If you dreamed up a rum bar in the depths of your imagination, it would look exactly like this. Here, in the heart of Grand Case, Saint Martin, one of those great little French Caribbean beach towns, is the best rum bar in the Caribbean: La Part des Anges, which, if you’re a rum enthusiast, should be at the top of your Caribbean bucket list.
Everything here has been cultivated just so. There’s every rum-producing country of note in the Caribbean represented here, with the exceptional rhum agricole of the French Caribbean unsurprisingly well represented.
It’s all here: the J Bally, the HSE, the JM, La Favorite. Strong showings from Cuba.
It gets its name, of course, from the “Angel’s Share,” the rum in the barrel that evaporates as the spirt ages, something that happens more deeply in the tropical heat of the West Indies.
But the only rum that disappears here is the rum in your glass, and quickly. This is a cornucopia of rum, a Great Library of Alexandria for sugarcane.
Because it’s more than a bar; it’s a tribute to fine artisanal rum, and at its core a tasting bar where the only thing that should mix with your drink is air.
No matter where you lie on the rum-loving spectrum, it’s here for you: the high-ester Hampdens from Jamaica? The sweet nectar from Venezuela? The great Demeraras from El Dorado? It’s all here, too, along with an especially good offering from Guadeloupe, whose rums are even further off the radar than its sisters in Martinique. That includes wonderful rums like the increasingly popular Longueteau from Basse-Terre.
And yes, there’s the super-rare stuff, including a fantastic Rhum Clement 1952 I sampled which, well, you can imagine.
While it’s by no means obligatory, if you’re a lover of the leaf the humidor is filled with an impressive list of selections from Cuba.
I should mention that this rum bar is actually joined at the hip (and run by) the team at Le Pressoir, which just so happens to be the number one-rated restaurant in the entire Caribbean. That means that, if you’re a self-styled bon vivant or gourmand, this is just about heaven.
While Martinique and Guadeloupe are the unquestioned capitals of Caribbean rum, Saint Martin has been developing into a rather enviable rum destination in its own right; a place where just about every bar of any quality can start you off with a ti’ punch and end with an exquisite Depaz or JM, and the digestif menus at restaurants here increasingly have their own rum category.
You immerse yourself into the world of fine Caribbean rums here. You discover — or remind yourself — of the marvelous artistry of the greatest rum makers.
And on an island where rum, particularly rhum agricole, is a growing part of the fabric of daily life, this is where it all comes together, a rum bar par excellence, a rum bar that is the best rum bar in the Caribbean right now.
After an extraordinary Dover Sole and a course of truffle brie next door, you retire to a leather chair, recline with a snifter of Neisson, and peer out the window to an old Creole street in a French Caribbean fishing village. And the world slows down, and an unforgettable evening flows into a lasting memory.
