Suzanne Shep­pard

T&T may be one of the promi­nent rum pro­duc­ers in the Caribbean but it is al­so one of the most sig­nif­i­cant mar­kets in this part of the world for John­nie Walk­er scotch whisky. That is why this coun­try is the first stop on the Amer­i­c­as leg of the epic jour­ney of the lux­u­ry yacht, John Walk­er and Sons Voy­ager.This was re­vealed yes­ter­day by glob­al brand am­bas­sador for John Walk­er and Sons, Tom Jones, dur­ing the first of two days of events tak­ing place lo­cal­ly to cel­e­brate the T&T leg of the Voy­ager's jour­ney."John­nie Walk­er whiskies sell well here," said Jones in re­sponse to ques­tions dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing on board the yacht which is docked at Pier One in Ch­aguara­mas. "We have been sell­ing whisky here since 1883."

Jones, who will be on board the yacht as it jour­neys through the re­gion over the next few months, shared his vast knowl­edge of the whisky dur­ing a ses­sion which fea­tured the pre­mi­um John­nie Walk­er Blue, a best sell­er in T&T, as well as the re­cent­ly launched Odyssey and oth­er lux­u­ry blends.Since set­ting off in Sep­tem­ber 2012, the Voy­ager has sailed through Asia, re­trac­ing the orig­i­nal spice route, as well as Eu­rope. Stops on the voy­age through the Amer­i­c­as in­clude An­tigua, Venezuela, Aru­ba, Colom­bia, Puer­to Ri­co and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, with the fi­nal stop in Mi­a­mi in the Unit­ed States.

The jour­ney is a re­pro­duc­tion of the epic trav­els of the Walk­ers who trans­formed the in­dus­try when they hired ship cap­tains to act as brand am­bas­sadors and to ex­port their whisky around the world. It al­so cel­e­brates the launch of the new, award-win­ning triple malt, Odyssey, which com­mem­o­rates the cre­ation by Sir Alexan­der Walk­er, grand­son of John Walk­er, of a nau­ti­cal de­canter for use on ships which moved to match the mo­tion of the sea.Dur­ing its stop in Trinidad, a se­ries of high-pro­file events are be­ing host­ed on board the Vy­achy. One of the high­lights was a black tie din­ner last night at which mas­ter chef Khalid Mo­hammed used John­nie Walk­er in the cre­ation of sev­er­al spe­cial dish­es and shared his opin­ion on the pair­ing of whisky with var­i­ous foods. A Blue La­bel Car­ni­val Gala is sched­uled for to­day.The world-renown brand was cre­at­ed by John "John­nie" Walk­er who start­ed to sell whisky in his gro­cer's shop in Scot­land. His son, Alexan­der Walk­er in­tro­duced the icon­ic square bot­tle and an­gled la­bel de­sign which set the whisky apart from oth­er brands and grand­son Alexan­der II ex­pand­ed the line and in­tro­duced the colour names by which the var­i­ous John­nie Walk­er blends are known.