TORTUGA Caribbean Rum Cake now boasts a new home at Reading, Montego Bay. Truth be told, the 10,000 sq ft headquarters and state-of-the-art bakery is hard to miss and what’s more, it sits across the road from the magnificent Caribbean Sea, with an opening onto landscaped grounds, rock garden and a sugar mill that harks back to another time.

Managing director Simonetta Maffessanti is understandably proud, and yet humbled, at what has now been achieved.

“The Tortuga rum cakes are,” explains Maffessanti, “still made from the same secret family recipe dating back over a hundred years and the trademark ingredient remains a generous amount of premium five-year-old, oak-barrel-aged Tortuga Gold Rum”.

Great care is also taken to ensure that the product remains fresh, delicious and, as those of us who know the product well will attest, ‘moreish’. “Each cake is individually hand-glazed with Tortuga Gold Rum before packaging. this vacuum-sealing process ensures a shelf life of six months and keeps indefinitely if refrigerated or frozen,” adds Maffessanti.

There are other popular Tortuga Caribbean Rum Cakes, explains Maffessanti, like the Tortuga Blue Mountain Coffee Rum Cake launched in 1999 and the Tortuga Banana Rum Cake and Tortuga Coconut Rum flavours. Presently there are eight flavours, the latest addition being orange.

There’s more.

“I’ve long wanted to share my Italian culture with Jamaica by bringing the delicious flavours of Italian ice cream to Jamaica. This location now allows me to do both,” relates Maffessanti.

It does indeed, for along with her dedicated team of young, enthusiastic and loyal staff (she’s committed to hiring young talent from the Montego Bay Community College and the HEART Programme) the retail store offers Calypso Gelato – billed as ‘Real Italian ice cream with a taste of Jamaica’.

“The staff was trained,” she explains “by an Italian ice cream expert in the production of and serving of the perfect gelato. The result: over 40 flavours, from the traditional hazelnut, tiramisu and panna cotta to sour sop, naseberry, guava, mango, Tortuga Caribbean Rum Cake flavour and passion fruit.”

Calypso Gelato is made fresh everyday using real milk, cream and fruits. No preservatives or colorants are used, therefore producing a fresh and delicious taste.

As can be expected, the retail store offers an excellent tiramisu as well as the very popular chocolate fan cake, the swan cake, Gelato (ice-cream) cakes and Napoleon cakes.

Tortuga is now a global brand. Founded in 1984 in the Cayman Islands by Robert Hamaty (a one-time Air Jamaica pilot), it has franchises in Jamaica and Barbados, where Tortuga Rum Cake is merchandised and sold as the Tortuga Caribbean Rum Cake in supermarkets, gift shops and the airports islandwide.

Tortuga Rum is a combination of Jamaica rum and Barbados rum specially blended. The name, Tortuga, was derived from the original name given to the Cayman Islands, Las Tortugas meaning “The Turtles”.

The local franchise is owned and operated by Simonetta Maffessanti who assumed the operation six years ago at its previous location in the Bogue Industrial Park.

The Tortuga Rum Cake story officially began in 1987. Using Tortuga as the main ingredient, the Tortuga Rum Cake was an instant hit.