For its third edition, the Magnum Series sets sail for Trelawny Parish, Jamaica, into the atmospheric heart of the Hampden Estate distillery. Each year, La Maison du Whisky and its Italian partner, Velier, invite a Magnum Photos photographer to capture the soul of a distillery through a week-long creative immersion. For Series #3, Spanish photographer, Cristina De Middel explored Hampden’s maze of fermenters, pipework, overgrown facades and humidity-soaked rooms, transforming these raw spaces into surreal, cinematic compositions. Four of her photographs illustrate the labels of this new collection of rums, distilled between 2016 and 2021 across a variety of Hampden marks. This Hampden 7 Years Old 2018 HGML pushes the series into a new realm of aromatic concentration. HGML (Hampden George MacFarquhar Lawson) is one of the estate’s most extreme marks, characterised by ester levels of 1,000 – 1,100 g/hlpa. From the first nose, the rum oscillates between exuberant fruit, refined floral tones and smooth, honeyed sweetness. Gradually, the profile gathers force, developing deeper empyreumatic notes and bold tar-driven accents. The retro-nasal olfaction reaches a powerful climax: an explosive, upward surge that captures the full intensity of high-ester Jamaican rum. Founded in the mid-18th century and operating continuously since 1753, Hampden Estate is one of Jamaica’s oldest and most revered rum producers. Known for its long, wild natural fermentations and tradition pot still distillation, Hampden crafts some of the world’s most aromatic, high-ester rums. Each mark expresses a distinct facet of Trelawny’s fermentation culture, and HGML stands among its most audacious, a vivid unmistakable snapshot of Hampden’s heritage, terroir and uncompromising style.
