November 2013
| Business World Magazine | 229
the birthplace of rum. Local distilleries
such as Mount Gay have been perfecting
production since1703, an era in which lo-
cals didn’t even know it as “Rum,” but by
another name – “Kill Devil” (something
that likely stuck after killing a few bot-
tles).
Barbados is rich in history as one of
the earliest islands to be colonized by the
British, yet its history precedes the cen-
tury earlier interactions with Spanish and
Portuguese navigators who dubbed the is-
land with the name of Barbados, a word
that translates to “The Bearded Ones,”
which as theories prevail, is either a ref-
erence to facial features of the primitive
Carib Indians that inhabited here or a ref-
erence to the indigenous bearded-fig trees
whose drooping roots left such an impres-
sion, historians continue to debate.
What is of no debate is the array of
modern conveniences that further en-
hance tourism. For example, Barbados
has more fine-dining per square mile than
any other Caribbean Island, and its com-
posite of internationally acclaimed chefs
