Now, that route has been shifted to Miami, with service on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
The flights are being operated seasonally by Envoy on Embraer E175 aircraft.
“We are thrilled to continue growing Miami’s connectivity to the Caribbean with the launch of our fifth destination in the Dominican Republic,” said Juan Carlos Liscano, Vice President of MIA Hub Operations at American Airlines. “As we continue with our recovery, demand for travel to the Caribbean has remained strong, resulting in additional growth with new destinations like Anguilla, Dominica, and now Samaná, a hidden gem in the Caribbean.”
The flight takes just under 2.5 hours, according to the carrier.
American currently operates 76 daily flights to 35 destinations in the Caribbean out of Miami.
That includes 12 daily flights from Miami to the Dominican Republic.
But it’s not just the complexity, the artistry, the overwhelming quality.
It’s that every year, the sugarcane harvest is different; and when you’re dealing with a pure agricultural product, with pure sugarcane juice, that means every year the rum is different. (That’s without mentioning the incredible diversity of terroir one finds in Martinique and Guadeloupe).
For some years now, the legendary Rhum Clement has been putting out a special bottling of its Blue Cane rhum blanc, a vintage made exclusively with the company’s blue sugarcane.
And its release is one of the biggest moments in the rhum agricole calendar, including an exclusive, high-design bottle design.
It’s the essence of what makes rhum agricole and the producers in Martinique and Guadeloupe so unique: the bottle is itself a work of art; the rhum is made exclusively from a single sugarcane varietal; and every year, with the harvest, it’s unique.
Indeed, rhum blanc, or white rhum agricole, has become an ultra-competitive sector within the world of rhum agricole; increasingly, more and more distilleries are producing unique expressions; red cane, black cane, blue cane; even higher-proof bottlings; and, most recently, parcellaires, or white rums made exclusively from the cane of a single corner of the sugarcane plantation.
Because in the world of rhum agricole, creativity is the driving force; smaller sizes and real terroir mean the chance for endless experimentation, for sugarcane journeys with no preordained destination.
Rhum Clement helped set many of those trends with its early focus on the annual blue cane bottling, and now it’s done it again.
It’s called Rhum Clement Single Cask, and it’s a 100 percent blue cane aged rum, meaning Clement has taken one of its rhum blanc vintages and aged it, in this case for four years and five months in oak barrels.
It’s bottled at 41.3 degrees and, crucially, the one we tasted is one of just 611 bottles.
In other words, it’s unique, and it’s unique.
So what’s it like?
The aroma has notes of pepper, fennel, cane stalk, confectioner’s sugar and a tiny hint of green banana.
The flavor profile is marked by white pepper, a hint of pineapple, a bit of roasted kiwi; a whisper of cucumber.
The finish is rounded by licorice and a glow of vanilla.
It’s clean and endlessly fresh, the classic Clement Cane Bleue with the elegance and refinement of nearly five years in oak barrels.
More importantly, though, it’s just cool, a refreshingly creative rum experiment, of the kind that these artisanal rhum agricole producers in the French Caribbean can attempt — and do so with regularity.
Because rhum agricole is just different.
And that’s why there’s nothing else in the world like it.
It’s not often that you find a beach bar attached to one of the world’s greatest restaurants.
But that’s precisely the case at Club Tropicana, the hottest beach bar in Bonaire and one of the region’s top toes-in-the-sand hotspots.
It’s called Club Tropicana, and it’s set at Bonaire’s ultra-cool Delfins Beach Resort, adjacent to (and sharing the kitchen of) the Brass Boer, the renowned eatery that’s the first-ever Caribbean outpost for Johnnie and Therese Boer, the team behind Holland’s De Librije, which has held three Michelin stars since 2004.
The pool at Delfins and Club Tropicana.
And yes, it’s the Brass Boer kitchen that sends out signatures like steak tartare, the “spicy egg,” Surinamese style noodle soup and what is almost certainly the best ceviche anywhere in the Caribbean — a marvelous for-two dish with wahoo, marlin and tuna in almost mind-blowingly impressive marinades.
But the food is just the beginning at Club Tropicana, where the cocktails flow all day, joined by an ever-growing rum list that includes impressive expressions from distilleries like Colombia’s Dictador and Bacardi’s super-premium Reserva Limitada, among others.
The aesthetic is beach chic, with a deck and on-the-sand seating and a wraparound bar, with an even better soundtrack.
Even better? It also boasts a swim-up bar, connected to Delfins’ popular, winding pool.
And it’s set at what has become one of the Dutch Caribbean’s most dazzling new hotels, a mix of rooms and villas with a prime beachfront location and a modern, barefoot-chic vibe.
It’s a wonderful anomaly: a full-fledged Caribbean beach bar with an almost impossible gourmet bent.
Delfins Beach Resort is part of Bonaire Rum Week 2022, the region’s most exciting new rum festival. Club Tropicana and the Delfins beach will play host to the final cigar-and-rum pairing evening on June 17. For more, visit Bonaire Rum Week.
The Caribbean’s most popular tourism destination had another record-breaking month in February, a sign of the country’s full-fledged travel rebirth.
In February, the Dominican Republic reported more than 566,000 passengers, representing the second-best month for tourism in its entire history.
That represented 268 percent growth over February 2021, maintaining a trend of recovery the country has seen since September of last year.
The Casas del XVI hotel.
“Tourist flow levels continue to remain at pre-pandemic levels in the Dominican Republic, while most destinations in Central America and the Caribbean are nowhere near achieving such a recovery,” said Tourism Minister David Collado.
Of course, that’s not entirely true — destinations like the United States Virgin Islands and The Bahamas, most notably, have seen dramatic tourism rebounds with expertly-managed reopenings amid the pandemic.
But it’s hard to argue with the DR’s success, buoyed by what was the most liberal entry-testing policy in the wider Caribbean over the last two years.
About 60 percent of the country’s tourists are coming from North America, along with 30 percent from Europe and 9 percent from Latin America, according to Collado.
Punta Cana remains the country’s tourism hub, accounting for more than 79 percent of all travelers to the destination.
Saint Lucia has updated its travel protocols, creating what the island is calling “Seamless Saint Lucia,” Caribbean Journal has learned.
The changes, which will take effect March 5, mandate that fully vaccinated travelers and in-transit passengers aged 5 and up must show proof of a negative antigen or rapid PCR test within one day of travel.
Travelers can also provide a negative RT-PCR test taken up to five days prior to arrival.
All unvaccinated travelers must present a negative RT-PCR test, taken up to five days before entering Saint Lucia.
All travelers, regardless of vaccination status, must register their information and test results on the island’s website (you can find the portal here).
Rapid antigen tests must be administered by a healthcare provider, according to the Saint Lucia Tourism Authority. Self-administered tests and saliva tests are not accepted.
The island is reporting that around 90 percent of tourism arrivals to Saint Lucia are fully vaccinated travelers.
“As one of the very first destinations to implement a responsible tourism reopening strategy, Saint Lucia has continuously evaluated Covid-19 travel protocols,” said Chief Executive Officer of Saint Lucia Tourism Authority, Lorine Charles-St. Jules. “These major changes are good news for visitors and returning nationals as it means a simplified process, greater access to testing and a significant reduction in cost. We have been listening to our travel community in the U.S., UK, Caribbean and around the world. Travelers are seeking a seamless experience along with confidence in safety, and our eased protocols reflect our commitment to welcoming travelers back to Saint Lucia.”
