On Thursday, 17 November 2022, Imexco Ghana Limited in partnership with BIDC: Barbados Investment and Development Corporation organized a masterclass for Ghanaian bar tenders in Ghana.

The two-day event saw a massive attendance by respective bartenders for popular bars in Accra.

Export Barbados, the Barbados national agency in charge of the promotion and development of exports, has sponsored and worked in close collaboration with Imexco Ghana to host these sessions.

The partnership aim at training and building the capacity of bartenders and mixologists in Ghana, sensitization of Ghanaians to the Barbados products such as Rum and Claytons Kola Tonic as well as promote Barbados in Ghana and position Imexco as the official distributor for Barbados products in the local market.

Speaking on the need for the partnership and masterclass for bartenders, Country sales and marketing manager for Imexco Ghana, Aldo Manfreda intimated “I think behind bar tending is passion. When you are a bar tender, you work in bars, you’re meeting people; crossing countries and mixing cultures; you are blending ingredients”.

“We are bringing Barbados to Ghana to try and merge our cultures, and we are brothers and sisters across one very big ocean and bring something funky into the industry,” he said.
There were three rum products showcased during the Masterclass i.e. Bajan 1966 Rum, Cockspur Rum and Claytons Kola Tonic which is zero percent alcohol.

BAJAN 1966 prides itself on three pillars represented by the three main plum feathers found on its crown: Craftsmanship, People and Taste. Every drop in this bottle reflects over 100 years of experience and craftsmanship to produce the finest rum by the people of Barbados, who harvest the sugar cane to make the best-tasting rum by our master distiller for you to enjoy. Each batch of our rum is handcrafted from the finest all-natural ingredients in small batches consisting of a blend of pot still and column distillates, aged in heavy charred American oak ex-bourbon barrels; an uncompromising process for an exceptional result in every glass.

Claytons is also a unique and exotic, Caribbean made tonic, originally created by the Claytons brothers in Battersea, London England circa 1880. The brothers, John and Adam Clayton brought back KOLA NUTS from West Africa and blended them, along with other exotic ingredients, to create Claytons Kola Tonic. It is non-alcoholic, and its creation was likely influenced by the Temperance movement.

The last but not least product was the Cockspur. Cockspur rum has been making the party happen since 1884 when Valdemar Hanschell created the rum in Barbados, throughout the years, COCKSPUR has stayed true to traditional a process that makes the rum unique, including only the purest coral filtered water and the finest oak barrels. The rum continues to be aged in a beach-side band amongst the warm Caribbean sunshine and fresh ocean breezes.

Jean Paul Feghali, Chief Executive Officer for Imexco Ghana speaking at the event noted that
“As part of collaboration between Ghana and Barbados, it is important for us businessmen to try to relate and link with whatever Ghana or Barbados has to offer and we believe that rum is one of the very important product that has been mastered by Barbados for years”

“We also believe that Ghanaians will appreciate this rum, especially the Barbados rum” he added.

The Commercial and Cultural Attaché to the Barbados High Commission, Mr. Phil Phillips also spoke about what the future holds in terms of collaboration.

“It’s unimaginable. If you look for instance at the level of culture, the Barbados police band and Ghana police bands staged a virtual concert earlier this year so we will like to see those two bands now go out to the diaspora to perform at the large cities where there’s heavy diaspora population to promote the agenda of Ghana and Barbados,” he intimated.

“Tourism is a very important area for us. Tourism accounts for 40% of our GDP and therefore we will spend a lot of time attracting persons from Europe, North America and it’s about time we also placed Africa as the target audience for Tourism” he said.