When we geek out about how distilled spirits are made, topics like source material, yeast, stills, and aging locale naturally take center stage. Less discussed are the casks where aging takes place. Sure, we may take note that most rum is aged in ex-bourbon barrels, and that using American oak vs. French oak influences a rum’s flavor, but it’s rare to go deeper. Along the same lines, rum geeks hanker to visit distilleries to see the transition from sugarcane juice or molasses to a distilled spirit; far fewer get to visit a cooperage to see a tree log turned into a new cask.

I was recently invited to tag along with a group of bartenders to visit a cooperage, or, in French, a tonnellerie. There, we saw the entire process, from massive logs cut in French forests to casks ready to ship out to France’s spirit and wine makers and elsewhere around the globe. Join me below for a photo- and video-centric tour of the process.

Tonnellerie Baron

Given the size of France’s wine and spirits trade, it’s not surprising that there are dozens of cooperages turning out casks that start as trees in the country’s famed hardwood forest. Tonnellerie Baron is near Saintes, in the heart of the Cognac region, about 100 km north of Bordeaux. Although established in 1875, the estate underwent a significant expansion and modernization program about 25 years ago.

Fabrice Pajeau, Baron’s oenologist and commercial manager, took us through Baron’s operations. Before starting the tour, he noted that the facility can theoretically produce 20,000 casks per year, but they currently make less than that.

Forest and Trees

Baron selects trees individually from France’s forests and brings whole logs to the Tonnellerie. Upon arrival, they lie outside in the fresh air for a bit, with occasional watering to keep the wood at the desired humidity.

Eventually, the logs are split and cut into rectangular boards that roughly resemble the 2x4 you see used in construction. Here, I’ll call them stave blanks; the French word is merrains.

I’m Blanking

At this point, it’s important to note a critical difference between American and French oak. The cellular anatomy of American oak allows it to be cut in any orientation to create casks that won’t leak. As a result, an optimized cutting pattern can use almost all of the log.

In contrast, French oak’s cell structure requires that the blanks be cut in a particular orientation radiating outwards from the log’s center. If not cut properly, the resulting cask will leak. Creating non-leaking French oak stave blanks requires the logs to be split into thin triangular wedges that are then trimmed into rectangles. As a result, much less of the log is used relative to American oak.

While Baron wasn’t splitting and sawing stave blanks during our visit, we learned something surprising. Due to battles and hunting in France’s forests, it’s common for old bullets to be exposed during the splitting process.

New stave blanks can’t be processed into staves right away. First, they sit outside for three years, exposed to the sun, wind, and rain. This is called seasoning, and it allows unpleasant tannins and other undesirable compounds to leach out of the wood. In addition, the wood’s humidity drops considerably over that long period.

Stave Me!

Once seasoning is complete, coopers cut and plane the stave blanks to the slightly curved shape needed for the particular cask being made. A cooper first visually inspects each stave blank for deformities before feeding it into a machine that planes it into an actual stave.

Baron makes a wide range of cask sizes, between 200 and 600 liters, so each stave’s length, curvature, and beveling are tuned to the cask type it will help form.

A cooper sorts staves leaving the planer into various bins based on their physical characteristics. Staves with a tight grain pattern are typically used for aging wine, while a looser grain is preferred for spirits.

Initial Cask Assembly

Cask construction starts with a single metal hoop and a stack of staves. Holding the hoop about a meter high, the cooper carefully positions staves around its inner circumference. Once all staves are in place, they pound the hoop down, binding the staves tightly and allowing the whole assembly to be moved without staves falling out.

During the cask-making process, hoops are frequently added, removed, loosened, or tightened. The initial hoops are heavy-duty and far less attractive than the final hoops the customer sees when the finished cask is delivered. Throughout the facility, you’ll see racks of hoops in all sizes.

Toasting

Unlike American oak, which is traditionally charred with intense heat for a minute or so, French oak is typically toasted for about an hour, or maybe longer, at much lower temperatures.

Why toast? The controlled application of moderate heat transforms some of the wood components into the desirable flavor compounds associated with French oak aging. And while French oak casks are primarily associated with wine and spirits like Cognac, numerous rum makers around the globe also use French oak. As you might expect, rum makers in the French overseas departments like Martinique are particularly fond of French oak.

Toasting is done with a floor-mounted assembly that emits flames and heat. The fuel is wood discarded from prior steps. A cooper positions the cask assembly over the heating assembly.

Sensors and a computer track the temperature through the entire process. A screen mounted over each cask shows the current temperature and remaining time. When the monitor prompts them, coopers flip the cask upside down to toast the other end.

Further Assembly

After toasting, more hoops are added to bring the cask closer to its near-final shape. Hydraulic presses push the hoop down from above, saving coopers from hours of mallet swinging and associated arm strain.

At this point, the cask still doesn’t have its two ends (heads) in place, so it’s a good time to sand down the cask’s internal walls. Again, machines save the day, slowly rotating the cask while a cylindrical sander wheel works inside.

Grooves are also cut around the inner circumference of both ends of the cask. The cask head will later be pulled into this groove, known as a croze.

The outsides of the casks are also sanded by another machine that spins the casks. A cooper guides where the sanding belt touches the cask to avoid sanding the metal hoops.

Putting Our Heads Together

Elsewhere, the cask heads are assembled. Coopers start by preparing shorter staves that will eventually be laid side by side to form a square. First, a groove pattern is cut on both sides of the staves. These interlocking grooves prevent the staves from sliding apart when they’re all pressed together.

To prevent leakage through tiny gaps between adjacent staves, a very thin reed is glued in place, creating a gasket.

Once all the staves are joined into a square, a machine rotates the head to cut a circle and tapers the edges so that they’ll fit into the croze at each end of the cask body.

Final Steps

The last few steps, after the main cask and the cask heads are joined, include fitting the final hoops, which look much nicer than the intermediate hoops. The cask is then pressure tested to ensure it has no obvious leaks.

Naturally, a tonnellerie will want to put its name on the cask head, much like your car says Hyundai or BMW. In the old days, this might have been done with a branding iron. These days, laser etching is the norm and is much more adaptable than branding. In addition, the customer’s logo can also be added to the cask head.

Dust Up

You may have missed it in the photos above, but many of the coopers don’t need to wear dust masks, despite how much cutting and sanding occurs. Most of the machines at Baron do the cutting and sanding inside contained chambers. A vacuum hose system pulls air from the chambers to a central spot, where the sawdust accumulates before they’re pressed into wooden “bricks” about the size of a Spam can.

Wrap Up

Despite all the photos and videos above, the full cooperage process includes much more. If you ever get a chance to visit a cooperage, don’t pass it up!

Should you wish to experience French oak aged rum, I would first look toward rum makers in Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Réunion. With a little effort, you can even find molasses-based rums from the latter two. Here’s an article about that:

For more information and photos from other cooperages I’ve visited, see these two articles on my Cocktail Wonk site:

• Inside Cognac’s Tonnellerie Taransaud

• Birth of a Sherry Cask

Also, I’m always looking for ways to improve how I share information, so let me know in the comments what you think of this type of photo/video storytelling.

Rum Wonk is free to for all, but you can help support my independent journalism by buying books from Wonk Press, my publishing company.

(Not So) Hidden End Credits

In my forays through rum history documents I’ve squirreled away, I occasionally see something that triggers a fresh look with new tools. Such was the case with a 2000 document regarding rum at the Caroni distillery in Trinidad. Countless articles over the past decade have covered Caroni rum and its rise to highly collectible rarity.

However, new rum enthusiasts are joining the fold and often don’t know the Caroni story beyond what’s conveyed by brands selling the shuttered distillery’s ever-dwindling stock. So, with new details and fresh data to share, I wrote what follows.

Caroni – The Legend

In the rum world, Italy’s Luca Gargano is one of the best-known and well-traveled personalities. Over the last three decades, his company, Velier, has released some of the most sought-after rum bottles. In addition to being the first independent bottler to release Caroni rum, Luca and Velier are closely tied to prestige bottlings of rare Demerara rums, Haitian clairins, and Hampden Estate. He’s also said to have the largest rum collection in the world. But today’s focus is Caroni.

A page on Velier’s website states:

It was on 9 December 2004 when, together with photographer Fredi Marcarini, Luca Gargano landed on the island of Trinidad and visited the legendary Caroni distillery. Luca didn’t know what he would find there. He certainly had no idea what a big surprise he was in for. Thousands of barrels of rum, the oldest dating back to 1974.

Similarly, a Caroni page on La Maison & Velier’s website notes: “In 2004, Luca Gargano, chairman of Velier, discovered the hundreds of casks stored in the distillery’s warehouse.”

Luca didn’t wait long to put Caroni stock on the market; in 2005, Velier released three single-cask bottlings. Velier’s 2006 catalog lists seven bottlings from 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, and 1989, along with a blended 15-year-old. The blend retailed for a whopping €23, while the Heavy 1982 stretched wallets at €33. (Said in jest, of course.)

Indeed, the naughts (2000-2009) were a great time to be a rum collector. Today, Velier Caroni bottles from that era start at €1,000 and often go for 2x-5x that price. You might call it a Caroni-Craze.

However, as the 21^st century dawned, Caroni was far from undiscovered within the rum industry. Furthermore, the distillery was offering 20,000-liter tanks of aged vintage rums for practically pennies per liter. In 2008, substantial amounts of Caroni rum were offered for sale and remained unsold. Yet a decade later, rum geeks were rushing to buy up Caroni at eye-watering prices before it all disappeared.

How did this happen?

Caroni’s Final Days

In 1970, against a backdrop of the Caribbean sugar industry hemorrhaging money, Trinidad’s government acquired a 51% share of Caroni—both the sugar factory and distillery. Tate & Lyle, the original owner, retained a 49% share and continued to manage. Unfortunately, the sugar industry continued to bleed money, and the government took full ownership in 1975 and merged it with other related holdings to create “Caroni (1975) Ltd.”

A quarter-century later, with things still bleak, the government sought to break up Caroni (1975) into subsidiary companies and encourage private companies to take a 49% minority stake in each. In February 2000, Angostura bid for a 49% stake in the rum distillery subsidiary, and the government later declared it the preferred bidder. However, it wasn’t a slam dunk for the company. Per testimony in TT’s parliament during the 2000 session:

… the negotiations for the price of the 49 per cent shareholding in the rum distillery subsidiary, Rum Distillers of Trinidad and Tobago Limited, should be guided by a valuation report of its rum stocks, which should be prepared by a rum specialist …

Angostura share purchase never happened, so the company never owned the Caroni distillery, despite what some people think. Did the valuation play a role? We may never know, what we do know quite a bit about the valuation.

Caroni Rum Stock Valuation (2000)

Trinidad & Tobago (TT) parliamentary transcripts from Oct. 13, 2000 provide a peek into how Caroni’s rum stocks were valued:

…the decision to have a valuation report prepared by an independent rum specialist was made by the Government back in May 2000… Subsequently, … Ernst & Young [undertook] a stock count of the rum stocks of the rum distillery … the project management team decided to secure a high volume rum trader to undertake the valuation of the rum stocks. Three international high volume traders were identified:

(1) Delevante & Associates of Canada;

(2) E & A Sheer B. V. of the Netherlands; and

(3) The Main Rum Company of the United Kingdom.

…

On August 10, 2000, the project team … agreed that the Main Rum Company of the United Kingdom would be the preferred valuer…

What did the report say? The same parliamentary transcript quotes the valuation’s cover letter:

We confirm that in our view the value of the 18,533 barrels of aged rum notified to us by Ernst & Young is, at current market prices, TT $20,489,091.

In US dollars, that was around US$3.25 million in 2000, or around US$6.3 million today (2026), adjusted for inflation.

While Main Rum’s full report has never been made public to my knowledge, a summary page of specific lots, quantities, and prices appears in Mayer’s book.

As a data geek, the data begs to be analyzed and graphed. The first shows the ten largest lots by combined vintage and type, e.g., “1997 Heavy”. What immediately pops out is that the largest lot isn’t Caroni at all, or even from Trinidad. Main Rum’s report summary doesn’t disclose the provenance, but an oral history from Mayer’s book suggests it came from National Rums of Jamaica.

The second graph shows the price per 1 LAV for different vintage/type combinations. The data is surprising in multiple ways. First, heavy rum commands only a very small price premium over light/white rum. Second, the prices are shockingly low when viewed through a modern lens. USD $2.41 per liter of 10-year heavy Caroni alcohol? Extrapolating that cost to a 750ml bottle at 50% ABV, it’s only USD $0.90! (Mind you, you couldn’t buy that bottle for USD $.90, but if you could, it would cost closer to $9, not $90.)

Who Bid For The Valuation?

A brief aside for the three companies that were considered for the valuation:

Delevante & Associates is Michael Delevante, who served in a technical role at Wray & Nephew for several decades, including as Appleton’s distillery manager in the late 1960s. In a recent email, he told me Wray & Nephew was interested in buying Caroni’s rum stocks and asked him to evaluate them.

E&A Scheer had been purchasing Caroni stock from the distillery for years before 2000, so would have had a good handle on Caroni stock prices. Scheer and The Main Rum Company were doing business together well before the 2000 valuation. In 2001, E&A Scheer merged with Main Rum.

Dispute of Main Rum Valuation

Main Rum’s valuation wasn’t accepted by all parties, however. Opponents of TT’s ruling power claimed the true value was much higher. Continuing from the 2000 TT parliamentary transcript:

A few days later, by mid-August, the Main Rum Company commenced the valuation exercise. However, while this exercise was in progress, a report appeared in the Trinidad Guardian of September 9, 2000, in which the Opposition leader, Mr. Patrick Manning, claimed that the rum stocks of Caroni (1975) Limited were valued at $922 million, with details of the number of casks and their respective values.

TT$ 922m is USD $146.3 million — about 45 times higher than the Main Rum Company valuation (in USD) of $3.25 million. The opposing perspectives on the Caroni stock value had a highly contentious matter in Trinidad circles, and I will not weigh in here. However, having read the basis for the TT $922M claim, the underlying logic seems naïve about costs of goods versus shelf pricing and the tiers between them.

Caroni Selling Direct

An interesting twist to the above valuation, possibly never previously mentioned, comes via the Internet Wayback Machine. Look up trinidadrum.com there and you’ll find saved pages dating back to September 1^st, 2000. One page of this website provided pricing for aged rum—one to ten years—in bulk (20,000-liter containers) at prices between USD $0.91 and $2.41 per liter of alcohol. What a bargain!

In addition, what the Main Rum valuation summary called “Cased Goods” appears to be listed as well. Stallion Puncheon, the most expensive bottle, is listed at USD $2.08 per bottle—if you were to buy 18,000 bottles.

Having previously analyzed Main Rum valuation and LAV pricing, the website pricing quickly caught my attention: the per-liter prices for 1- to 10-year-aged Caroni rum are effectively the same as Main Rum’s valuation for the same lots when expressed in USD. Go back and look at the Valuation by Age chart above, and look for the points labelled “price list.”

Initially, I assumed that the website pricing was based on Main Rum’s valuation. But the footer on Caroni’s website says it was last updated on June 27^th, 2000, roughly two months before Main Rum’s report. If that date is accurate, the website pricing predates Main Rum’s valuation.

Which came first—the Main Rum valuation or the Caroni website price? It’s impossible to be completely sure. Other pages on the 2000-era Caroni site have different last-updated dates from 1999 and 2000, making the June 27^th date more plausible. We may never know unless someone with direct knowledge shares that information.

Rum Distillers of Trinidad & Tobago (RDTT)

The Caroni distillery continued making rum between 2001 and 2003, after which it was shuttered. The same year, Caroni business was reformed as Rum Distillers of T&T (RDTT) and the remaining stocks continued to be offered to prospective buyers.

We don’t conclusively know how much rum RDTT was able to sell. But per Mayer’s book, Luca Gargano purchased around 200 casks in 2005. This was a drop in the bucket compared to the rum making up Main Rum’s 2000 valuation, however. A conservative estimate, based on data in Mayer’s book, is that 1/3rd to 1/2 of the original stock may have been sold. More on this later.

Caroni Auction Fails (2008)

In 2008. RDTT put a substantial amount of rum on the auction block:

The high-level summary:

• 5,388 casks (740,000 LAV) of rum between 3 and 19 years old

• 35,000 LAV of vatted rum of various ages

• 2,860 cases of bottled rum of different expressions

• There’s no claim that all rum was distilled by Caroni. Some of it could have been from Jamaica.

• One lot, so the buyer was taking everything.

It’s tempting to try calculating how much of the original 2000-era stock remained in 2008. By total LAV, the 2008 auction offered roughly 30% of the LAV reported in 2000. But going any deeper into where it went is the path to madness for several reasons:

• We don’t know exactly how much 2001-2002 stock the auction included. The auction notice lists rum as young as 3 years old.

• The angels were continuously buying. Between 2000 and 2008, the rum in casks evaporated at around 7% annually. Had the entirety of the 2000-era casked stock had remained in casks till 2008, about 44% would have evaporated.

• Aside from Velier’s relatively small 2005 to 2008 purchases, we don’t know for sure who else bought Caroni stock.

In any event, the October 9th, 2008 auction was a bust; nothing was sold to the nine registered buyers in attendance. The reserve price for the entire lot was set at TT$ 7.8M, or about USD $1.25M.

Why Weren’t Buyers Buying?

A story in the T&T Express published a few days after the auction painted a bleak picture:

San Fernando businessman Alec Elias said the minimum reserved price, the buyer’s premium and the conditions of sale were unrealistic. A registered buyer asked the auctioneer to start the bidding with his offer of [TT]$750,000 and heard another offer of [TT]$1 million carried to [TT]$1.5 million before the auctioneer took control and put an end to the unauthorised bids…. Angostura Ltd’s Robert Wong said the minimum reserved price was way above what buyers were prepared to pay…. ’A minimum reserved price of [TT]$1 million is what most of us expected,’ he said. Not a reserve of[TT] $7.8 million.

Given the prices paid for Caroni stock today, it might seem unfathomable that rum brokers with a sharp eye and good palate weren’t snapping it up in 2008. My calculations put the reserve at about USD $1.60 per LAV, in line with the 2000 valuation pricing. Nonetheless, it was more than buyers were willing to pay for what remained.

Could potential buyers have had strong concerns about the remaining Caroni stock? The 2000 parliament testimony raises some concerns early on:

… [an] organoleptic evaluation of 139 samples sent by Ernst & Young has revealed a number of barrels below average quality, some of poor quality, and others of bad quality. Ten out of the 139 samples were considered by the tasting panel to be of unacceptable quality. The report further went on to note that the variations in alcoholic strength between the figures shown by Ernst & Young on the samples and those measured by E & A Sheer B. V. were, in some instances, as much as 15 per cent.

To put this passage in context, 139 samples taken across 18,533 barrels is a sample rate of less than 1%. In a 2021 interview published in Mayer’s book, E&A Scheer’s Chief Rum Officer, Carsten Vlierboom, who played a central role in the 2000 valuation, is quoted regarding the 2000 Main Rum valuation:

….we looked at all the samples of every single variety and every single vintage. It was a huge amount where we had to determine if there were bad casks. Not bad in the sense of just spoiled, but also with too much fusel or strong flavours of burnt tyres that would stand out too much in the bulk rum for blending, making the whole batch unsaleable.

We might reasonably assume that most lot sales prior to the 2008 auction were relatively small, and that buyers had ample opportunity to sample. But by the time the 2008 auction rolled around, potential buyers were asked to buy all 5,388 casks without having sampled every cask, or even a small fraction of them. Sampling everything offered at the 2008 auction would have been costly and a logistical nightmare.

Given the above, you can see why potential buyers might have had some concerns about buying the entirety of the remaining stock (approximately 800,000 LAV), effectively sight unseen.

Who Bought Caroni Stock?

Today there’s a certifiable flood of Caroni bottlings available from dozens of brands. But most of these brands didn’t buy Caroni stock directly. Instead, they bought from a handful of companies that did. And even those companies bought from each other. Who are they, and when did they become aware of Caroni and its stocks?

Angostura (TDL) was certainly aware of Caroni and its stocks, not least because the company almost bought a 49% share in Caroni circa 2000. We don’t know what cask-aged stock, if any, they purchased in those early days. We do know that Angostura took possession (not ownership) of the remaining stock for safekeeping after the failed 2008 auction. In 2010, Angostura purchased this stock. Mayer estimates the number of casks to be around 1,818. It’s long been rumored that some Angostura-branded expressions over the years contained Caroni stock.

However, Angostura never noted Caroni stock in any of its rums until the 2022 release of Zenith, a 50-50 blend of TDL and Caroni rum listing for US$3,000. The blend is said to contain rums aged between 20 and 23 years. (Fun fact: I was at the Zenith launch event in NYC and was asked to say a few words about Caroni’s history to the assembled press.)

The Main Rum Company, owned at the time by Ben Cross de Chavannes, was involved in the 2000 valuation, so had a front row seat. The company purchased various lots of Caroni casks over the years, although only Main Rum knows which lots. The company still sells Caroni casks today to various independent bottlers.

Bristol Spirits Ltd (Bristol Classic Rum), the UK independent bottler operated by John Barrett, also purchased casks. An April 23^rd, 2025 Facebook post by Bristol Spirits notes that owner John Barrett visited the distillery in 2001 with Main Rum’s Ben Cross.

Per Mayer’s book, Bristol Spirits bought 66 casks circa 2009, and may have also purchased around 800 casks via the murky Ejan Worldwide. Mayer’s book also suggests that Bristol purchased their 1974 rum from Velier.

Velier bought several lots of casks directly from RDTT, the successor to the Caroni distillery company. Mayer’s book states:

Luca was able to purchase a total of 1276 casks of Caroni rum over the years. In 2018, all but 140 had been bottled, or lost to the angels.

Per Mayer, Gargano shipped 371 casks (vintages between 1991 and 1996) to Guyana in 2008 for safekeeping.

An indeterminate amount was sold to Santa in Colombia and Varela Hermanos (Ron Abuelos) of Panama. We can guess these lots were blended into other rums, rather than sold as Caroni-made rum.

Wrap Up

Everything above skims the surface of the story, as I know it. Mayer’s book, CARONI 100% Trinidad Rum, goes into much deeper detail, including interviews with Luca Gargano, Rudy Moore, the managing director of Caroni / RDTT, and E&A Scheer’s Carsten Vlierboom. It’s deeply geeky stuff highlighting the inner workings of the rum trade, where lines aren’t as clean-cut as you might imagine.

Today, word on the street is that casked Caroni rum is being offered to independent bottlers at LAV prices 100x or more above what it would have cost circa 2005. (I’ll let you do the math.)

I won’t say that Caroni rum is overvalued; any product is worth what someone will pay for it. I’ve purchased and enjoyed several bottles over the last decade. But when you look at the eye-watering prices for Caroni bottles today—some of the most expensive in the rum world—and contrast them with how Caroni seems to have perceived within the rum trade twenty years prior, you have to marvel at the transformation.

Recent rum-related news from India has been making headlines in the mainstream press. In a press release, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) announced that some of the country’s most iconic rum brands, including Old Monk and McDowell’s No. 1 Celebration, could no longer be sold.

Technically, the ban applies to specific expressions made at specific facilities in India. The banned expressions also extend to certain whisky brands, but this is a rum newsletter after all.

Within the spirits trade, it’s an open secret that Indian-made spirits were essentially just neutral spirit and flavorings, so seeing a government agency crack down on two well-known brands is surprising.

The reasoning behind the FSSAI’s ban on certain products has two dimensions. The first is:

…an existing malpractice wherein manufacturers, instead of creating products through maturation and/or from base materials such as molasses, malt, or grapes to develop their flavour naturally, use spirit/neutral alcohol primarily, which has no specific flavour and therefore add flavour externally.

Such products are not only sub-standard but are also misrepresented by using the names of standard categories [like rum]. At best, they can be identified as Rum-flavoured Spirit ... Further, the front of the pack completely fails to disclose the true nature of the product.

This is no small matter, as Diageo-owned McDowell’s is often cited as one of the world’s top-selling rum brands. But after initially challenging the FSSAI ruling in court, Diageo quickly reversed course and agreed to reformulate McDowell’s to comply with India’s regulations.

The second aspect of the government’s crackdown is false age claims by Old Monk:

The claim of “7 years old blended” in the label of Old monk XXX Rum variant was also found to be misleading. The major ingredient of the rum is neutral (unmatured/unaged) spirit, while the matured rum spirit is only a minor ingredient of the rum (less than 5% as per investigation findings). This is also a clear violation … as the age claim of the spirit should be from the youngest of spirit in the blend…

Misleading age claims have long been an Achilles’ heel for the rum category, but typically it’s a handful of Spanish heritage producers drawing fire. Old Monk is a new front in the fight.

Before we get to why the FSSAI took action, it’s worth noting that while all the brands it targeted are of Indian origin, FSSAI could have prohibited non-Indian brands from being sold in India as well. Let’s look at why.

Rum’s Lesser-Known Regulations

In spirits industry and certain nerdy rum enthusiast circles, 99.9% of rum regulation discussions focus on geographical indications, aka GIs. A GI dictates what can be labeled as rum (or other spirit) from a specific region.

For instance, Martinique’s AOC is a French law dictating all conditions that must be met to say “Rhum de la Martinique” and “Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée” on the label. Similarly, Jamaica’s rum GI defines the requirements to use “Jamaica Rum” on the label.

Much lesser known are the equally important, and arguably more consequential regulations about what can be legally labeled and sold as rum — regardless of where it was made. Different regions around the globe have different rules.

I collectively referred to these regulations (national and multinational) as rum standards in my Modern Caribbean Rum book. Chapter 17 is a 30-page deep dive into rum’s geographical indications and rum standards across a dozen-plus regions.

Existing rum standards from various regions are far less stringent than geographical indications. Nonetheless, they are very important as they define the baseline requirements to be called just “rum”, rather than something like “rum spirit drink” or “flavored rum.” If you think that being made from sugarcane is sufficient, read on.

Rum standards across various regions have some key differences, including:

• Some regions require a minimum aging period to call it rum.

• Some regions require bottling at 40% ABV or higher, while others only require 37.5% ABV—or lower.

• Some regions allow distilling up to 95%, others to 96%, and others don’t specify a maximum ABV.

These differences have real-world effects. For instance, unaged rum like Wray & Nephew White Overproof and unaged Martinique AOC rums can’t be sold as “rum” in Australia. Instead, they must be labeled as something like “cane spirit” or “spirit drink from sugarcane.” Likewise, Wray & Nephew White Overproof (presumably) can’t be sold as rum in India as its ABV exceeds what India’s regulations allow.

Rum Standards Around the Globe

Here are summarized rum standards for a few key regions worldwide. Note that in some cases, a region’s requirements may span several regulations.

Caribbean Community (CARICOM)

What can be sold as rum in CARICOM member countries like Barbados, Jamaica, and Guyana:

Obtained by distilling fermented sugarcane products or byproducts like molasses. Distillation must be less than 96% ABV. Smells and tastes like the result of fermenting and distilling sugarcane. Bottling at 40% ABV or higher. Any caramel used must derive from sugarcane. Age statements must reflect the youngest spirit in the product.

European Union Spirit Drink Standard (EU) 2019/787

What can be sold as rum in any European Union member country:

Obtained by distilling fermented sugarcane products or byproducts like molasses. Distillation must be less than 96% ABV, and the distillate must taste and smell like rum. Flavoring is not allowed. Bottling at 37.5% ABV or higher. Sweetening up to 20 grams/liter is allowed. Any caramel used must derive from sugarcane.

United States

What can be sold as rum in the US:

Obtained by distilling fermented sugarcane products or byproducts like molasses. Distillation must be less than 95% ABV. Bottling at 40% ABV or higher. While not specific to just rum, “blending materials,” e.g., sweeteners, must be less than 2.5% by volume.

Australia

What can be sold as rum in Australia:

Obtained by distilling fermented sugarcane products or byproducts like molasses and must taste and smell like rum. It must be matured in wood for at least two years. Bottling at 37% ABV or higher. No maximum distillation strength is specified.

India

What can be sold as rum in India:

Obtained by distilling fermented sugarcane products or byproducts like molasses. It may also be made from neutral, rectified, or distilled spirit of agricultural origin. It must taste and smell like rum. Bottled between 36% and 50% ABV. Sugar and permitted additives may be added, but caramel is the only permitted coloring. No maturation is required unless labeled “matured,” which requires at least one year in wood or with wood chips.

What About Bumbu?

Previously in the Rum Wonk newsletter, I took aim at Bumbu’s claim as the #1 Super-Premium Rum in the World, when the brand’s top-selling expression, The Original, is clearly not rum, per rum standards for the US, EU, and elsewhere.

While you might think that Bumbu’s issue is similar to what caused India to ban Old Monk and McDowell’s, it’s not. Bumbu (the brand) isn’t labeling or selling The Original as “rum.” The TTB legally classifies it in the US as a “rum specialty.” In the EU, it’s labeled as a “spirit drink.”

From this angle, Bumbu (the brand) conforms to national or regional labeling rules. The problem is that retailers and the trade press constantly refer to The Original as “rum” rather than “flavored rum” or a “spirit drink.” Look at liquor store labels and online listings, and you’ll find The Original consistently lumped in with actual rums like Mount Gay, El Dorado, and Saint-James. Unfortunately, since most consumers don’t read labels closely, they assume Bumbu The Original is rum. This is nothing new and technically not the brand’s fault. But when the brand began blurring the line itself, including in a recent press release, it went too far, and I called it out.

Wrap Up

The requirements for what can be called “rum” have been part of national laws for decades or longer. Simply put, the FSSAI decided that Old Monk and McDowell’s #1 Celebration rum weren’t compliant with what can be sold as rum in India. Again, FSSAI could have taken similar action against non-Indian-made spirits; after all, rum standards apply to all rums sold in a country, not just domestically made rums. However, in India’s case, imported rums are much smaller players in India’s vast spirits market—the country has 1.5 billion people.

Sadly, actual enforcement of these laws is often lax, especially when it comes to rum. (Call Fireball a “bourbon” and watch for hellfire rained down from organizations like the Kentucky Distillers Association.) Example #1 of lax enforcement when it comes to rum is the US TTB’s label approvals for “sorghum rum” and “sugar beet rum”, both of which were in clear contradiction to the US standard of identity for rum.

Rum advocates like me have become used to such slights. So, when India’s regulators took forceful and public action regarding a non-rum being sold as rum, it brought a glimmer of hope, as well as much-needed attention to a critical part of establishing rum’s reputation as a premium spirit.

During my daily review of Google News alerts for rum, I did a double-take, swiftly followed by a groan, when I saw BevNet’s story, Bumbu Named the #1 Super-Premium Rum in the World for Second Consecutive Year:

It’s hardly news to readers here that Bumbu gets a lot of hate from rum purists. So, before continuing, I will state up front that I have no issue with Bumbu’s liquid. It’s not my cup of tea, but I heartily acknowledge that products like Bumbu have a place on store and bar shelves. If people enjoy a product like Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey, more power to them. Drink what you like, and all that jazz.

My problem is that the statement in Sovereign Brand’s press release—Sovereign is Bumbu’s parent company—obfuscates what type of product Bumbu actually is. In particular, it claims a more prestigious product category than the product actually is. Yes, there are hairs to be split on this point, and I’ll get to that later. But by way of an analogy, imagine if Skrewball claimed to be the “#1 Selling American Whiskey?” If they did, the hailstorm of vitriol from actual American Whiskey makers would be immediate. But when it comes to a rum-based product? Most people, including spirit news outlets that should know better, shrug and move along.

Government regulations around the world define categories and subcategories for alcoholic beverages of all stripes. Within the US regulations, the product types related to rum include:

• Rum

• Cachaça

• Flavored rum

• Rum liqueur

• Rum specialty

Any rum-based product that does not meet the definition below cannot be legally labeled or sold as rum. Instead, it will be assigned to one of the other types listed above.

All alcoholic products sold in the US must have their label approved by the US TTB. Among other things, the label approval application includes the product type (e.g., rum, flavored rum, or whatever). As luck would have it, we can peek into the TTB’s public database and find the label approval information for any product. Here’s Bumbu The Original’s current label approval:

As it turns out, Bumbu The Original is officially a rum specialty. If you scrutinize the front label, it doesn’t say “rum”; it says “rum with natural flavors.” Clearly, the brand knows Bumbu Original isn’t rum, at least in the US.

In the EU, it’s not a rum either, in part because of its sugar content. Under EU regulations, rum can contain up to 20 grams/liter of sugar. According to Sweden’s Systembolaget, which lab tests the products it sells, Bumbu Original contains 47 grams/liter. Systembolaget also notes it as SMAKSATT SPRIT (“Flavored Spirit”).

Given this, it’s not surprising to me that a class action lawsuit was filed concerning Bumbu being promoted as rum in 2023.

Bumbu XO

It’s worth noting here that Bumbu is a brand, not a single product. Besides “The Original”, there’s also Bumbu XO and Bumbu Cream. The latter is what it sounds like; the former (“XO”) is legitimately “rum” in the US:

I don’t have sales figures for each of Bumbu’s SKUs. Still, given their price points and other circumstantial data points like what’s on store shelves, we can reasonably expect most of the brand’s sales come from non-rum products, i.e., Bumbu The Original and Bumbu Cream. The RumX page for Bumbu The Original has over 1800 reviews and a 7.0 average rating, while the RumX Bumbu XO page has nearly 400 reviews and also a 7.0 rating.

The Problem and Why It Matters

When Bumbu’s press release starts with, “Bumbu Rum Company has earned the distinction of #1 super-premium rum in the world* for the second consecutive year…,” it’s disingenuous. Sales of non-rum products, i.e., The Original and Cream, should not be attributed to rum sales. It’s as simple as that. And if by some stroke of luck, sales of Bumbu XO by itself were enough to make it the #1 seller in the “super-premium” category, then the brand should say that.

With its vast diversity of styles and centuries-old traditions, the rum category should easily place it in the uppermost echelons of distilled spirits, both in consumption and in respect relative to its peer spirits. But as a whole, the rum category struggles with misperceptions: “It’s just for fruity drinks,” or “It’s too sweet,” or, among whiskey drinkers considering rum, “It has no rules.”

We enthusiasts know these tropes are completely untrue, but the average consumer doesn’t. Single-country spirits like Bourbon or Scotch whisky are much easier to educate on than rum, which has hundreds of high-quality expressions made in dozens of countries.

Brands that misrepresent their products as “rum” add to the problem, as do spirits retailers who intermingle rum and non-rums on their shelves. I guarantee you, you won’t find Fireball or Jack Daniel’s Apple stocked in the bourbon section of a reputable retailer. But rum? Who cares! Or so it seems.

Also not helping rum’s case are certain spirits trade publications and tasting competitions that are clueless about the distinction between rum and flavored rums, and/or cling to obsolete style descriptions like white, dark, and overproof. It’s an uphill battle, and I’m here for it.

For a deeper dive into the Bumbu story, see this prior article:

Note: The class action lawsuit against Bumbu ended in 2025. If anyone has access to the PACER database, please let me know what the court records say.

As an American of a certain age, my history classes in school overwhelmingly focused on American history starting in 1620 with the Pilgrims’ arrival at Plymouth Rock. The rock itself is a tourist destination often joked about by those who’ve made the trek to see it. Let’s say it’s … underwhelming.

Inexplicably, I can’t recall ever wondering why “Plymouth” was bestowed on this rock and surrounding region. If asked, I probably could have guessed. Nonetheless, this thought didn’t enter my mind during my 3-hour train ride to Plymouth, the English seaside city in the far southwest of the UK. Instead, my thoughts were about meeting a gentleman named Arthur Roberts. Sixty years after his six-month stint at a navy supply depot in the 1960s, his handwritten notes had become my personal holy grail — rum-wise, that is.

Plymouth’s train station is surprisingly small, and I quickly spotted Arthur and his son, Neil. Arthur’s voice was just as I remembered it from our phone conversations several years prior. The three of us hopped into Arthur’s car, Arthur and I chattering away in the backseat, for the short drive through the town to the former Royal William Victualling Yard.

The yard’s massive stone buildings are neatly arranged in a grid. Between 1826 and 1992 they supplied Royal Navy ships with all provisions required at sea, including rum. Similar victualling yards in Portsmouth and Deptford (London) also helped with this massive logistical undertaking. In the decades since 1992, the yard’s enormous buildings have been repurposed as office spaces, restaurants, and apartments, many with stunning views of Plymouth’s Harbor.

Now nearly 90, Arthur worked at this yard in a civilian role during the early 1960s as a storehouseman. Many trades worked at the yard, including butchers and bakers, grain millers and brewers. When a navy ship prepared to set sail it sent an order for consumables needed at sea to the nearby yard. For operational efficiency and backup duties, Arthur and other storehousemen rotated through and learned how to man multiple different stations, including rum blending.

Early in his time at Royal William Yard, Arthur’s tasks included taking various operational sundries to each station, so he saw everything going on at the yard. When Arthur and I strolled through the yard after our dockside lunch, he pointed out each building and what tasks were performed there. As I’d hoped, Arthur recalled exactly where the rum was blended and that two vats were used. We snapped an obligatory photo in front of the building and poked our heads in to see where the vats were. The vats are long gone, and it’s a retail space now.

However, Arthur didn’t blend rum at this yard. By the time he rotated into that role, rum blending operations had moved to a satellite facility at Wrangaton, about 20 km east. Circa 1963 at Wrangaton, he handwrote instructions on yellow sheets of paper for making a 2000-gallon batch of rum, including exactly how many casks of each type of rum (Demerara Pot Still, Demerara Column Still, Trinidad, Barbados), along with gallon-unit calculations of lesser component rum (Australia and Natal).

Decades later, Arthur left a comment on one of my blog posts, which led to a phone call. In it, he mentioned in passing that he still had these notes. Time stood still for a moment as I processed what he said. For years, stories about Royal Navy rum had noted (somewhat incorrectly) that it was a blend of Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad, and Barbados rums. But an exact recipe was nowhere to be found; there was no accounting of exactly which rums and how much of each. Having searched intensely but fruitlessly for several years, I’d accepted that a recorded exact recipe might no longer exist anywhere. Our call rekindled my hope.

You might think that a 1963 recipe for a single batch of Royal Navy rum is only mildly interesting. Indeed, the recipe changed many times over the 170 years that the navy blended rum. But a good historian isn’t satisfied with summaries and second-hand accounts. We impulsively pull any loose thread we see while looking for first-person accounts. Such accounts are the bedrock of the narrative we create for modern readers, and Arthur’s handwritten notes are part of the bedrock of Royal Navy rum history.

With the victualling yard tour complete, we had a few hours remaining before my train back to London. As a lifelong trail walker, Arthur is remarkably spry, even at 89, so we walked along Plymouth’s hilly but oh-so-scenic coastline while I struggled to keep up. When the time for my departure drew nearer, we made a final stop at the Mayflower Steps, which celebrate the approximate location where the Pilgrims set sail for North America in 1620. Circle completed!

As a historian, I mostly work with just words on paper, most written hundreds of years ago. History becomes much more real when we can meet the people who lived it and hear their stories firsthand. Michael Fogg, whose legacy is memorialized by Mister Fogg Navy Rum, is one such person. Arthur Roberts is another, and I’m grateful that I finally met him, especially in the victualling yard he worked at over half a century ago.

To learn more about Arthur Roberts and the 1963 Royal Navy rum recipe, chapter 7 of The Rum Never Sets contains an interview with him and most of his handwritten records.

Planteray’s OFTD rum turns ten years old today—July 20^th, 2026. I don’t usually write about rum release anniversaries, but OFTD has played an outsized role in the modern tiki movement and involves a set of rum luminaries still active today. You can read their recollections below, but first, some background for folks unfamiliar with OFTD.

Per its label, OFTD means “Old Fashioned Traditional Dark”, but almost everyone knows the real meaning is “Oh fuck, that’s delicious”, uttered by someone as the final blend took form.

The rum was first unveiled on July 20^th, 2016, at Tales of the Cocktail. Present were Planteray master blender Alexandre Gabriel, plus the six renowned rum and tiki experts who collaborated on OFTD’s blend with Alexandre:

• David Wondrich

• Jeff “Beachbum” Berry (Latitude 29)

• Martin Cate (Smuggler’s Cove)

• Paul McGee (Lost Lake)

• Paul McFadyen (Trailer Happiness)

• Scotty Schuder (Dirty Dick)

Over several meetups in New Orleans and at Chateau Bonbonnet near Cognac, the “OFTD Brothers” debated how the new rum would be used and what it should taste like. Their likenesses all appear on the OFTD label. (Paul McFadyen has a funny take about this in his recollection, below.)

My connection to OFTD runs deep. This 2016 Cocktail Wonk post was the first article about the new rum, published within an hour of its official announcement. I’d known about it for months and had spotted the label in the TTB database, so I had a story ready to go the moment it was confirmed. In what you might call an omen, I’d also spotted a bottle of OFTD on Latitude 29’s back bar just a few hours earlier.

In early 2018, I published a very deep dive into each blend component, the kind of technical detail brands rarely reveal. Sharing that level of detail with fellow rum geeks has long been a hallmark of Rum Wonk and Cocktail Wonk. 2016-era me couldn’t imagine that I’d someday be friends with each of the OFTD brothers.

OFTD and Tiki Drinks

From the beginning, OFTD’s target was creating the “ultimate overproof for Tiki cocktails”, although exactly what that meant was part of the debate. It’s well established that many classic Don the Beachcomber recipes blended punchy Jamaican and Demerara rums with a lighter rum to tie them together, often Puerto Rican. The halo of Lemon Hart 151 also hung over the OFTD sessions; its future availability was far from certain, and it wasn’t sold in many countries. In the end, the blend consisted of nine rums from six distilleries in three countries: Jamaica, Barbados, and Guyana, bottled at 69% ABV.

In some ways, OFTD is a single-bottle solution for many tiki classics like the Jet Pilot. Per Jeff Berry, the recipe calls for dark Jamaican rum, 151 Demerara rum, and gold Puerto Rican rum. OFTD covers the Jamaican and Demerara components. As for the Puerto Rican rum? The Barbados contribution to OFTD is a fine stand-in; perhaps an improvement.

The same substitution logic applies to other tiki classics, like the Navy Grog. I’ve lost count of how many multi-rum recipes I’ve looked at and thought, “This sounds like 2 ounces of OFTD to me.” Naturally, I adjust the amount of OFTD to match the original recipe’s alcoholic strength.

For a much deeper look into the rums used in tropical/tiki drinks, see my book, Minimalist Tiki, available exclusively from Wonk Press. It has four chapters dedicated exclusively to rum, in addition to 130 original recipes.

OFTD Brothers Reflections Ten Years On

As the OFTD’s tenth anniversary approached, I asked the team members for their thoughts on the rum a decade later.

David Wondrich

I’ve always liked the dark, high-proof Royal navy-style rums since the late 1980s when my old friend Nick Noyes brought me bottles of Wood’s 100 Old Navy Rum from Heathrow Duty Free, where, for various reasons, he was a frequent visitor. It was a strong—57% alcohol—very dark Demerara rum (I had no idea what that meant) with a good deal of grip when you splashed it into a glass full of ice, and I was a great fan. (Wood’s still exists, although it has changed hands and packaging and probably everything else.) Eventually, it disappeared from Heathrow, and I reluctantly moved it onto the shelf of pleasures past. There was nothing I could replace it with: the dark rums were too weak, the overproof ones too thin and hot.

So when Alexandre Gabriel asked me to join the pirate crew he was assembling to put together a navy-style overproof rum for use in Tiki drinks and punches, I leaped at the chance. At our first meeting, held in a dining room at Arnaud’s (I should probably say Arrrrnaud’s) in New Orleans during Tales of the Cocktail, I came in from the street with a bottle of cold Sazerac Cocktail in my hand, left over from a previous event, and administered a Sazerac layback to anyone willing. Most were. The project proceeded in that spirit. We took the work seriously, but with a group like that one, how could one not have fun?

That said, one of the most fun parts for me was something I did by myself, in April, 2016. That was writing the copy for the label, where I got to cram in an almost ridiculous amount of 18th-century naval jargon into a very small space, and give thumbnail sketches of the rest of the crew in the process.

Ironically, the best drink I’ve come up with using the OFTD is not a Punch or even remotely Tropical. It’s the Oogots, which is how a 1930s Pittsburgh newspaperman spelled what a local Sicilian called the bogeyman. In Sicilian, it would be “U cazzu,” which translates more or less into “that f----n guy.” It’s that kind of drink.

Oogots

Shake viciously with ice:

• 1 oz Planteray O.F.T.D. rum

• 1 oz Amaro Zucca

• Strain into a tall shot glass or a small, chilled cocktail glass.

Jeff Berry

I’ll never forget the first meeting of the OFTD brethren at Arnaud’s in New Orleans, a historic restaurant where rum history was about to be made. Five Tiki bar owners were in attendance, all desperate for a high-proof mixing rum to sub for Lemon Hart 151, which was rumored to be on the chopping block. This would be disastrous, since without it, we couldn’t make Zombies, Jet Pilots or many other Tiki classics.

In advance of the meeting, I’d sent Alexandre vintage bottles of Lemon Hart 151 and Dagger 97-proof Jamaican rum, suggesting that a blend of the two might be a good reference point for a contemporary equivalent made with distillates sourced by Planteray (then Plantation).

Alexandre did his thing and, at Arnaud’s in New Orleans, gave us samples of what he’d come up with. I said it was delicious — too delicious to put in the well as a mixing rum — and suggested we pivot to a sipping rum instead. I was quickly shouted down by the other bar owners, who reminded me of why we were there in the first place. I’m glad they did, because OFTD is now an essential well rum in every Tiki bar, mine included.

Martin Cate

In the course of developing OFTD, it really evolved into its own unique monster. When we first met in New Orleans in 2015, we all brought vintage rums to try, aiming to recreate something we felt was missing from our modern rum arsenal. We tasted, compared, and discussed while the Maison Ferrand team took copious notes.

When we reconvened in Cognac, we brought more vintage bottlings with us and really went around and around, with lots of great input from all the OFTD brothers. I think what came out of these sessions is something of a new beast, only recreating some vintage products in certain ways.

The flavor profile of OFTD is pretty unique and easy to identify on its own and in cocktails. And it performs in drinks in ways I didn’t anticipate. When I started rolling it into the drink program at Smuggler’s Cove, I found that it really made some drinks sing, and it becomes a bully in others. That’s been the interesting discovery for me, and what makes it fun to play with, because you never know how it’s going to perform until you really dive in and experiment.

Paul McFadyen

Working to make OFTD was one of the highlights of my entire rum career. Bouncing between New Orleans and France, watching Jeff, Martin, Paul, Scotty and Dave strive to recreate the essence of what Lemonhart 151 brought to Donn and Vic’s bars was a joy. The result shouts loudly for itself.

At the front end, I’m constantly struck by just what OFTD means to people. For the wild at heart and kitchen staff (a Venn diagram that mostly overlaps), it’s a shot of choice to wake up a jaded palate. There are bars across the UK where it’s part of their closing traditions - they bond over it. I’ve seen it in high-end hotels and dive cocktail bars, playing its part, and I’m told it’s many people’s favorite rum in the world.

What it’s taught me is how far even a little goes. It’s unlocked the joy of the Hell in the Pacific cocktail, and I’ve learned the hard way to ALWAYS question what shot you’re being handed in a late-night club!!

OFTD also keeps me humble when young bartenders repeatedly tell me, “Oh! I assumed those old guys were all dead!!”

Paul McGee

After sampling many iterations of the trial blend, we all decided to take a break and stroll over to one of the buildings at Bonbonnet. We were having fun looking at the casks and vats of rum aging inside when David Wondrich pointed to a large vat and asked Alexandre what was inside. Alexandre said it was 2-year-old Barbados rum, and David asked for a taste. Alexandre obliged. David took a swig and said, “That’s not bad. We should bring some of this back to the tasting room with us.”

Later on, David asked to add a bit of the 2-year-old Barbados rum to the blend of Guyana and Jamaican rum we’d been tasting all day. That was it, the missing piece of the puzzle! The small amount of Barbados rum tied everything together and made OFTD complete. We had created an overproof rum with not just the heat expected from it, but one with weight and flavor that’s truly delicious.

Scotty Schuder

One of the funniest stories was when we all met for the first top-secret tasting in New Orleans. No one knew what to expect, and we were meeting each other for the first time. I was anxious, nervous, and in the middle of a Tales of the Cocktail bender week. I arrived to find a large table with all the holy grails of vintage rum, like Wray & Nephew 17, Lemon Hart 151, all of the Dagger rums, the list goes on.

We’re sitting there glancing at the rums and each other, while waiting for our missing brother, Mr. David Wondrich. Eventually (it felt like hours to me), Dave arrives with an open bottle of Sazerac whiskey, apologizes for being late, pops the cork, and pours a couple of ounces straight from the bottle into everyone’s mouths. I wasn’t nervous anymore and was ready to begin the birth of OFTD’s DNA.

It’s been a crazy 10 years. OFTD is the backbone of many of our Cocktails at Dirty Dick. And a massive thank you to Alexandre Gabriel for putting this project together. What a wild ride!

Alexandre Gabriel

I’ve been fortunate to create many spirits over the last 37 years, yet Planteray OFTD will always hold a special place in my heart. It was born from strong opinions, shared passion, laughter, and a common desire to create something uncompromising and memorable. It took us a full year to finally get it right.

Then came the moment when David tasted what would become the final blend. He stood up and blurted, “Oh Fuck That’s Delicious!” OFTD was born.

Along the way, people began referring to us as the OFTD Brothers, something none of us could have imagined when we first gathered around a table in a secret room at Arnaud’s in New Orleans.

Ten years later, I’m still touched by the enthusiasm OFTD inspires. The greatest compliment is that people experience the joy, passion and commitment that created it.

Welcome to the fourth and final part of the Making Funky, High Ester Rum series.

In part 1, we covered the formation of flavor molecules (“congeners”) during “normal” fermentation, including how cerevisiae and pombe yeast differ.

Part 2 covered how stressing pombe yeast under acidic conditions leads to the production of more esters, including more complex esters not normally seen during regular fermentation.

Part 3 covered bacterial fermentation, which produces more complex acids that, in turn, yield more complex esters. Bacterial fermentation can occur simultaneously with yeast fermentation or as a separate process. Muck, the hyperbacterial sludge used at certain Jamaican distilleries, is an example of a separate bacterial ferment.

Below, we’ll examine an unusual process invented over a century ago that supercharges ester formation during distillation. Rather than tweaking fermentation parameters, this process employs some chemical jujitsu, forcing esters to form at the last possible moment before the rum exits the still. The resulting rums have ester levels five times (or more) than what’s achievable by fermentation alone, and well above what Jamaican regulations have allowed since 1935.

H.H. Cousins – Island Chemist

If you’ve read Part 3 of the series, you may remember H.H. Cousins, who popped up briefly in the description of muck. If a Hall of Fame for Jamaica’s 350 years of rum making were created, Cousins would be a first-ballot shoo-in.

Herbert Henry Cousins (1869-1949) was an Oxford- and Heidelberg-educated chemist who was appointed island chemist for Jamaica in 1900. At the time, the British government was panicking over reduced revenue from its Caribbean colonies, largely due to the decline of the sugarcane industry. The proposed solution was to throw money at the problem, creating research stations and staffing them with young, brilliant scientists like Cousins.

Between 1905 and 1908, Cousins and his team (Allan and Ashby) prolifically wrote about all aspects of Jamaican agriculture and rum, and their fermentation research is arguably among the most groundbreaking rum research of the era. In 1908, Cousins was named Director of Agriculture for Jamaica, a position he held until 1932.

Instructions for Making High-Ether Rum

In 1906, Cousins published Instructions for Making High-Ether Rum, a pamphlet that remained confidential for many years and was nearly impossible to obtain, even for a determined researcher. But for anyone with a chemistry-oriented interest in rum, it’s well worth reading and rereading several times until you’ve absorbed everything Cousins says.

The first part of the paper outlines and describes five categories of rum, e.g., “CLASS III - Special Rums of Medium Ether Content”. The paper also notes that German blenders were willing to pay handsomely for high-ester rum—the higher the ester level, the higher the price. Cousins also notes that German chemists had gone so far as to create artificial Jamaica rum flavor:

So energetic are the makers of artificial rum flavours that last year every estate in the island was presented with a small sample of essence of Jamaica rum made in Germany which was recommended for improving our ordinary rums !

Cousins and the Jamaica distillers certainly weren’t going to roll over at this affront. In the paper’s final pages, Cousins drops the hammer — a new process that creates ester levels four times higher than those in rums the island had previously sold to German blenders. Cousins believed his process would cause the German blenders to put away their artificial flavoring nonsense:

Moreover, the [German] law requires the chemical rum to be sold as “Artificial” or “Kunst” Rum, whereas the blended High Ether rum would be sold as “Blended Jamaica Rum.” It is obvious that even if we could sell a 4,000 Ether rum at 10s per gallon the profits would be enormous.

While Cousins called his technique the High Ether process, distillers and rum nerds today call it the Cousins Process. And before I can explain the Cousins Process in layperson’s terms, we must first internalize the principles on which the technique relies.

General Laws of Ether Production

To help his readers understand his new process, Cousins outlined some principles of ester formation. I’ve summarize them here, usings Cousins’ own words, in italics.

Ethers Can Be Created or Destroyed

Alcohol + Acid = Ether + Water.

[However] The action … is readily reversed : e.g. Ether + Water = Alcohol + Acid.

Given a certain amount of alcohol and acids in a watery liquid… there will always be a certain maximum amount of ethers that can exist at any time…

In short, chemical equilibrium at work.

High Acidity + High Alcohol Makes More Esters

“A common clean wash at 1% acidity will yield a 200 ether rum, whereas a Trelawny liquor at 3% acidity will give a 1000 ether rum.”

Basically, the more attendees at a party, the more likely (molecular) hookups will happen. Alcohol and acid molecules love to hook up to create esters.

Water Inhibits Ester Creation

The less water in proportion to spirit present, the more ethers produced… a certain amount of acidity will give ten times more ethers … [at] 60 per cent alcohol as compared… [to] 6 per cent of alcohol.

Water is the unwanted “third wheel” when acid and alcohol molecules date.

Heat and Ester Creation

The production of ethers is slow and takes time. Five days are required at the ordinary temperature for a full production of Ethers in a liquid. If heat be applied, however, the action is greatly expedited.

Heat speeds up chemical reactions; the same ester formation that takes five days at fermentation temperatures happens much faster at distillation temperatures.

Quality Not Quantity

Typically, more than 99% of the esters in rum are ethyl acetate, which is composed of an ethanol molecule and an acetic acid molecule, both readily present during fermentation. Ethyl acetate is, well…. fine…, but it’s not the ester that has rum geeks singing its praises. More complex esters are what give Jamaican and other “exotic” rums their particular flavor profile, even at much lower concentrations than ethyl acetate.

Cousins notes:

Acetic Ether. This forms the chief ingredient of the Ethers of rum…. Acetic Ether has a pleasant fragrant smell and gives a pleasant taste to rum. When present in excess it stings the nose when smelling rum in a glass…By itself, Acetic Ether is of very small value as a rum flavour. … An increase in the Acetic Ether content of a common, clean or even a high-class rum, if not supported by an increase in the other Ethers in suitable proportion will not add to its intrinsic commercial value.

As for the more complex esters, Cousins says:

The Higher Ethers are oily liquids of boiling point far higher than that of alcohol … They are possessed of most attractive fruity smells. Caproic Ether has a sweetish fruity smell, Caprylic Ether a strong smell of pineapples… The merest trace of Caprylic Ether will dominate a large volume of spirit so as to give it a fragrant smell of pineapples that is very lasting….

Naturally, Cousins’ technique explicitly targets these heavier esters.

Operating the High Ether Process

Having reviewed the optimal conditions for ester formation in the abstract, let’s examine how Cousins designed a process that meets those conditions.

As we saw above, the optimal conditions for ester formation include a hot, highly alcoholic liquid. Specific types of acids, e.g., butyric, caprylic, and capric, are added to this liquid, providing an optimal environment for the alcohol and acid molecules to combine into esters, and in particular, more desirable esters.

Adding acids to the fermented wash won’t cut it, as the wash is around 5% ABV, which is too low for optimal ester-creation conditions.

Is there somewhere in between the start and end of distillation where these acids could be added? With the right type of pot still, yes!

Jamaica’s distilleries are famous for using double retort pot stills. Regardless of whether the Cousins process is used, the 1^st retort (“low wines”) is first filled with low wines from prior distillations. Likewise, the 2^nd retort (“high wines“) is filled with high wines from prior distillations.

The only twist with the Cousins process is that the acids are added to the high wines before charging the 2^nd retort. Once distillation is underway, the high wines retort has a high ABV, high heat, and lots of acid—perfect conditions for creating esters.

Acid Hacking

In the above, I handwaved past the part about where these desirable acids come from. Fortunately, Cousins tells us exactly where to look:

The lees from the retort, or the two retorts where such are in use, contain acids identical in kind and similar in proportion to the acids existing in the Ethers of the rum which has been obtained from the distillation. If we can recover these acids and introduce them into the next charge of High Wines we shall greatly increase the content of Ethers in the rum.

For those unfamiliar with distillation, “lees” are the liquid remaining in a still or retort after distillation completes. While the lees in the retort have desirable acids, they’re diluted in water, so they’re not usable as-is. The question becomes: how are these acids extracted into a form that can later be added to the high wines before charging the 2^nd retort?

The technique Cousins developed involves three steps, two of which involve chemical reactions. I’ll explain the steps at a very high level because most readers aren’t chemists.

1. Calcium hydroxide, a white powder commonly used in food processing and certain plasters, is added to the lees from the retorts. A chemical reaction occurs, causing the acids in the lees to bind with calcium molecules. The results are “salts” like calcium butyrate, calcium caprylate, and calcium caprate. You’ll see these salts used in food additives and gut-health products.

   

2. The resulting liquid, full of these salts, is then dried by slowly heating it in an open tank to drive off the water. The dried salts can be stored for later use.

   

3. When ready to perform Cousins Process distillations, the dried salts and sulfuric acid are added to the saved high wines several days before the 2nd retort is filled. The sulfuric acid “steals” the calcium from the salt molecules created in step 1, and creates calcium sulfate, while freeing the butyric acid, caprylic acid, and capric acid molecules.

   

   In case you’re concerned about adding sulfuric acid to what’s being distilled, there’s no need for concern. Its boiling point is high enough that very little, if any, will pass out of the 2^nd retort and into the collected rum.

In short, the acids are moved from the retort lees of one distillation to a high wine charge of a subsequent distillation. The movement uses a two-step chemical process with an intermediate drying stage. The Cousins process document provides many more technical details, which I have omitted here; my goal is simply a high-level overview for a mostly non-distiller audience. This diagram, used with permission by Brett Stiegerwaldt, outlines the process graphically.

Aftermath

Hampden Estate was an early testbed for the process, as noted in a 1906 Jamaica Gleaner article:

The process is being tested on a commercial scale at Hampden estate in St. James where a special plant has been installed for the purpose… The rum produced at Hampden is claimed to possess four times the flavouring power of that producible by the ordinary process and to be peculiarly suitable for the use of blenders on the continent.

Cousins patented the process and assigned the patent to the rum producers’ association:

So far as manufacture is concerned the High Ether Process has been proved a complete success. Its novelty has been accepted by the U.S. Patent office after official enquiry and patents have been granted in the United Kingdom, Barbados, Trinidad and British Guiana.

Elsewhere, it was noted:

As the process is applicable to Whisky and Brandy it is possible that it. might find use for reinforcing the ether content of these spirits, and that Royalties might be obtained from the foreign rights under the Patents.

To my knowledge, no whisky or brandy makers have used the Cousins Process for a commercially available product. If you know otherwise, let me know!

Shortly after Cousins stepped down as Jamaica’s Director of Agriculture in 1932, the island passed Law 18 of 1934, which empowered the governor to set the maximum ether levels for rums. A newspaper story at the time noted,

It is thought that if the manufacture of high ether rum is not controlled, such rum if sold in a foreign market might be used to dilute spirits and the resultant mixture sold as rum to the detriment of the good name of Jamaica rum.

This restriction remains in effect today, over 90 years later. The DOK mark from Hampden, the TECC mark from Long Pond, and New Yarmouth’s NYE/WK mark are all in the 1600 esters level range, the maximum that Jamaican rum regulations allow. You can see all known Jamaican distillery marks on my Jamaican Rum Marques Roundup page.

The Cousins Process Today

I’ve personally seen the Cousins process in use at Hampden Estate. It’s also my understanding that some variation of it is also used at Long Pond and New Yarmouth. In a future story, I’ll describe its use at another Caribbean rum distillery, albeit outside Jamaica, and not traditionally known for making super-funky rum.

Also, for you distillers, Brett Stiegerwaldt and John Hayes (Lyon Rum, Cotton & Reed, respectively) recently posted a great video on the American Distilling Institute YouTube channel. It covers many of the topics this series covered, including the Cousins Process. Here’s the link:

Parts one and two of this series have focused on yeast-centric fermentation. Part one covered yeast mechanics, congeners, and differences between the cerevisiae and pombe yeast species. Part two covered stressing pombe in a high-acid fermentation environment, along with dunder and cane acid.

In part 3, below, we’ll investigate a different type of fermentation — bacterial(!) that creates more complex acids and esters emblematic of high-congener rums.

Baby Got Bac(teria)

Like yeast, bacteria are live microorganisms that consume sugar and other organic compounds in a rum mash and produce congeners. If both are present in a fermentation, the yeast and bacteria compete for the available food supply, including the sugar.

Just as different yeast species emit different types and ratios of congeners, there are many species of bacteria. In part 2, I mentioned Acetobacter aceti, which consumes ethanol molecules and emits acetic acid. Other bacterial species, such as Clostridium and Bacillus, can produce congeners that are much more noxious than acetic acid.

In very general terms, yeast consumes sugar and produces congeners, skewed towards alcohol, particularly ethanol. In contrast, when bacteria consume sugar, the congeners they emit skew towards acids. Not just acetic acid, but also more complex chain acids like propionic, butyric, valeric, and caproic acid. Butyric acid smells of vomit and rancid butter; caproic brings notes of goat and sweaty gym socks. Lovely stuff, right?

Most large-scale rum producers take preventive measures to prevent bacteria from participating in fermentation. The congeners (especially the acids) that bacteria create aren’t desirable in these types of rum, and the ethanol yield also suffers. Closed-tank fermentation, stringent tank cleaning after each fermentation, and pasteurizing the molasses before adding yeast are all ways to keep bacteria in check.

However, some rum makers actively encourage the coexistence of bacteria and yeast during fermentation. At a minimum, a long-running, open tank fermentation will likely experience some bacterial activity along the way. But there are also ways to foster bacterial activity beyond leaving things to chance.

The majority, if not all, of Jamaica’s rum distilleries intentionally allow bacteria in certain fermentations. In particular, those destined for heavy, pot-distilled marks. Outside Jamaica, some of the better-known distilleries that use bacterial fermentation for certain rums are River Antoine (Grenada), Le Galion (Martinique), and West Indies Rum Distillery in Barbados. A future article will cover one of these in more detail.

Having introduced the concept of concurrent yeast and bacterial fermentations, let’s now examine an even more unusual trick that several Jamaican distilleries have up their sleeve.

What the Muck?

You may recall from previous parts of this series that the primary way to create more complex esters—the sort not found in normal rum fermentations—is to produce more complex alcohol and acid molecules. These acids and alcohols can then combine into longer-chain esters. Generally speaking, pombe yeast (see part 2) creates higher (“fusel”) alcohols, while bacteria like Clostridium excel at creating longer-chain acids.

While longer chain acid and alcohol creation can occur in the same fermentation, they don’t necessarily need to.

Picture this: two fermentations running in parallel — one yeast-based, the other bacterial. While yeast does its work, a colony of bacteria is fed and maintained for years on end. A bacterial “sourdough starter” from hell, so to speak. This colony lives in a pit, consuming sugar, dead yeast cells, and other organic matter in a thick, putrefying slurry.

The stratospheric bacterial levels in the pit create a huge reservoir of more complex acids, including the horrifyingly pungent propionic, butyric, valeric, and caproic acids noted earlier. Meanwhile, yeast strains living within the pit also produce alcohol molecules that combine with these acids to form esters. Not the oh-so-basic ethyl acetate, but more complex esters that are rarely found in traditional yeast fermentations. For reasons lost to time, the Jamaican distillers call this sludge “muck”, and it lives within a “muck pit”.

How is muck used? To answer this, we must return to the yeast-based fermentation. After fermentation ends, it could be distilled. But rather than distilling it immediately, a healthy slug of ester-rich muck is added to completed yeast fermentation. Adding muck introduces previously-formed esters (from the muck pit) that a normal fermentation creates very little of.

Only afterward is this composite wash distilled. The resulting distillate naturally includes these more complex esters. Why isn’t the muck initially added to the mash like dunder and cane acid are? Adding muck while the yeast is working would decrease alcohol yield.

Only a few Jamaican distilleries use muck, and only for certain marks they make. We’ll look at this later.

Making Muck

Naturally, you’re probably wondering about how to make muck. As you might imagine, the Jamaican distillers who work with muck are loath to describe in detail. Call it Jamaican rum’s ultimate trade secret.

Here’s what we do know. In 1905, H.H. Cousins, a research scientist in Jamaica, along with fermentation chemist Charles Allan, studied all aspects of Jamaican rum production from an organic chemistry perspective. Here’s Allan’s description of muck:

The components of the ‘ muck hole’ are the thicker portion of the dunder from the Still, the lees from the retorts and cane trash and other adventitious matter which from time to time finds its way into this receptacle.

Sadly, there is no further description of this adventitious matter. However, we do know that bacteria-rich soil, including Clostridium, is part of the equation. There is also evidence that jackfruit and other indigenous tropical fruits are part of the mix. (Cyril Weglarz, of DuRhum notes bananas, jackfruit and sapodilla.)

In a 2021 interview I recorded with Hampden Estates, the slides note:

The muck pit contains the thick matter deposited from the dunder and dead wash bottom, to which cane trash is added. Muck consists to a large extent of dead yeast so is full of nitrogen.

Note: dead-wash bottoms contain a large amount of dead yeast cells from fermentation. There is no evidence of goat heads, however. Given the above, would it matter if there were?

As an interesting modern-day aside, the 2024 Jamaica rum GI revisions added the following phrase to the fermentation section:

Locally grown bacterial & yeast cultures can be used in the production of Jamaica Rum.

The original 2016 had nothing like this. I’m told that the 2024 addition was made to explicitly allow muck, something that the 2016 GI, as written, appeared to exclude.

Who’s using Muck

Three Jamaican distilleries are known to use muck for some of their marks. Generally speaking, it’s only the highest ester “continental” marks.

To my knowledge, only Long Pond has confirmed which of their marks use muck:

• LPS

• STC♥E

• TECA

• TECB

• TECC

Hampden uses muck. The technical data sheet that comes with their unaged 8 Marks Collection notes these marks utilize muck:

• LROK

• HLCF

• ◆H

• HGML

• C ◆H

• DOK

New Yarmouth also uses muck. My guess for their marks:

• NYE/HM

• NYE/RH

• NYE/WM

• NYE/WK

My Jamaican Rum Marques Roundup Page contains the most complete known list of marks for all six Jamaican distilleries.

What’s Next?

The first three parts of this series covered the pre-distillation aspects of high-congener marks. In part four, we’ll look at an unusual distillation trick that the Jamaicans have used for over a century. Distilleries outside Jamaica have also started using it. Stay tuned!

This is part two of a four-part deep dive into how funky, high-ester rums are created. There’s much more to it than just a particular yeast strain and a long fermentation.

Part 1 covers some baseline concepts that apply to all rum fermentation:

• Yeast does much more than consume sugar and produce ethanol. It also produces trace amounts of other categories of molecules, including acids, higher alcohols, esters, and aldehydes. For the sake of convenience in what follows, we’ll call them congeners. Or if you prefer, call them flavor compounds.

• The congeners created during fermentation are 99.9% responsible for the resulting aroma and flavor of unaged rum.

• What differentiates the various congeners from each other is the arrangement and number of the atoms within the molecule. Each type of molecule, e.g., ethyl butyrate, has its own distinctive aroma and flavor.

• Esters are formed when an alcohol molecule combines with an acid molecule.

• The liquid remaining after fermentation completes is a “soup” of ethanol, water, and the flavor molecules described above.

• There are many species and strains of yeast. Different yeast strains will create different soups, that is, different mixtures of flavor molecules.

• A yeast’s surrounding environment, including temperature and pH level, alters the ratio and types of flavor molecules that a yeast strain creates.

• The primary species of yeast used in rum fermentation is Saccharomyces cerevisiae, aka cerevisiae. The “underground punk rock” species of yeast is Schizosaccharomyces pombe, aka pombe.

In what follows, we’ll move beyond the usual yeast fermentation protocol that most rum makers use. While conventional fermentation can create flavorful rum, it can’t create the stratospheric levels of congeners exemplified by Jamaica’s “continental” rum styles and grand arôme rums made on Martinique and Réunion Island. For specific examples, see:

• Hampden HLCF and DOK

• Long Pond’s STC♥E

• and Savanna Lontan.

To achieve truly high congener levels, rum makers supercharge the fermentation process with additional ingredients that force the yeast to change the types and amounts of congeners it produces. Beyond just making more congeners, the resulting mix also contains congeners that a regular fermentation would have very little of.

Typical rum fermentations mostly make simple (“short-chain”) congeners. Supercharged fermentations contain much higher ratios of complex (“medium-chain”, “long-chain”) congeners. These medium- and long-chain flavor molecules give high-congener Jamaican rums, Grand Arôme rums, and other rums, such as River Antoine, their distinctive aromas and flavors.

You’re Stressing Me Out!

Much like humans act differently under stressful conditions, so do yeast cells. For yeast, stress (or lack thereof) is a function of various factors, including temperature, nutrient availability — they don’t live on sugar alone, pH level, and osmotic pressure. Vary these parameters during fermentation, and the yeast will adjust the amounts and ratios of the congeners it produces.

Here, I’ll limit the discussion to stress induced by low pH, or, in slightly less scientific terms, how acidic the fermenting mash is. If something acidic is added to the mash, both cerevisiae and pombe-type yeast will respond by producing more esters. Why so? By increasing the acid molecules in the mash soup, there’s more opportunity for yeast cells to combine the acid molecules with ethanol molecules (which the yeast makes) to create esters. Put another way, more acid gives yeast more ingredients to make more yummy esters, though the most complex congeners involve a different player we’ll meet later in the series.

However, cerevisiae strains are less resistant than pombe strains in more acidic environments (lower pH). A low pH level that might cause a pombe strain to break a sweat might immobilize or kill its cerevisiae strain cousin. For this reason, pombe yeast is much more prevalent in high-congener fermentations.

In short, the right yeast (pombe) plus additional acid in the mash recipe yields more esters. So, how do rum makers acidify their fermentation? We’re now ready to introduce dunder and cane acid into the discussion.

Dunder

Many misinformed books and articles have mythologized dunder as some sort of voodoo mystery ingredient. In reality, it’s just the waste liquid left over after distillation. When pot distilling, dunder is the liquid remaining in the kettle after the stripping run has finished. Column distillation also creates dunder, but that’s a different topic.

Given that fermented wash is over 90% water before distillation, it’s not surprising that what remains, i.e., dunder, is also mostly water. Also present, albeit in much smaller quantities, are acids, higher alcohols, dead yeast cells, and other assorted molecules.

In rum fermentation, dunder replaces some of the water that would otherwise be used. For instance, if a typical fermentation recipe calls for 1000 gallons of water, you might instead use 500 gallons of water and 500 gallons of dunder. Due to the acids in the dunder, the resulting mash will have a lower pH level than if only water were used. And with more acid molecules available to the yeast, more esters result! The acid in dunder also suppresses lactic bacteria, which produce lactic acid toxic to yeast cells.

Increased acidity isn’t the only benefit of dunder. The dead, decomposing yeast cells create nutrients that living yeast cells consume. As I said above, yeast does not live by sugar alone!

Jamaica isn’t unique in its use of dunder/vinasse/stillage. French rum makers in Martinique and Réunion use it to make grand arôme rums. And American sour mash bourbon? They’re also using dunder, although they’re more likely to call it stillage. Either way, they’re acidifying the fermentation using the waste liquid from prior distillations.

The word “dunder” is primarily used in a Caribbean context. Stillage and spent lees are common English language terms for it. Scotch whisky distillers call it pot ale. French-speaking cultures call it vinasse, and French rum makers use vinasse in the production of grand arôme.

Cane Acid

The other primary way of acidifying a yeast-driven fermentation goes by the somewhat concerning names of acid or cane acid. Rest assured, cane acid isn’t some industrially produced chemical compound. Rather, think of it as homespun sugarcane vinegar made on a larger scale—thousands of gallons at a time.

Cane acid starts as fresh-pressed sugarcane juice in a vat, along with cane trash, i.e., cane stalk remnants. Wild yeast cells living on the cane stalks initiate a fermentation process somewhat similar to that of a rhum agricole. But rather than distilling this liquid after fermentation finishes, it continues to sit. Eventually, ambient bacteria of the species Acetobacter aceti start consuming the ethanol and emitting acetic acid.

As with dunder, cane acid replaces an equivalent amount of water that would ordinarily be used in the mash. But unlike grocery store cane vinegar, which contains just water and acetic acid, the cane acid that Jamaica’s distilleries make also contributes wild yeast strains and pre-formed esters to the mash.

Part Two Wrap Up

Dunder and cane acid are both techniques to acidify a rum mash, which causes the yeast to emit more esters and, to a lesser extent, a different mix of esters and other congeners. Dunder and cane acid can be used individually or together in fermentations. Typically, high-congener fermentations use pombe yeast because it survives better than cerevisiae at lower pH (higher acidity).

Thus far in this series, I’ve focused on yeast-centric fermentation. However, there’s another path that produces the more complex acids and esters that are emblematic of high-congener rums. In part 3, we’ll take a turn towards the dark side — another organism that supports fermentation, yet is shunned by most distillers.

Sometimes my procrastination about starting to write subconsciously signals that I have more mental homework to do. So it was, while procrastinating over a story about a new high-ester rum, that I realized I needed to further hone my understanding of some nerdy, wonk fundamentals.

I’ve written quite a few stories here about rum aromas, flavors, and their associated chemistry. Still, in outlining how to approach this new rum, I realized my earlier writings had hand-waved past some important concepts. Back to the proverbial woodshed I went, forcing myself to head-on face dark corners I’d previously ignored. The result is a series of stories, starting with this one, that introduce basic fermentation chemistry for laypeople, then navigate through the techniques rum makers use to create extreme rums. To use a car analogy, how they turn a Toyota Camry into a top-fuel funny car.

What follows below establishes a baseline for how the majority of rum makers ferment their source material. Subsequent posts will explore how creating highly flavored, high-ester rums differs from mainstream rum making.

To start, let’s review a tiny bit of flavor chemistry to better understand what follows.

Flavor Basics

Fundamentally, the smell and taste of an unaged rum is the result of a soup of organic compounds generated during fermentation. This soup’s components are then filtered and concentrated via distillation.

When these organic compounds contact our nasal receptors and tongue, our nose and tongue send signals to our brain, which interprets them as smell and taste.

The primary organic compounds found in distilled spirits span several classes: acids, alcohols, esters, and aldehydes. Each class, e.g., alcohols, has subtypes that vary in molecular structure and complexity. For example, methanol and ethanol are both alcohols, but ethanol has more carbon and hydrogen atoms than methanol. As such, ethanol is “heavier” than methanol.

Here are four of the most molecularly simple alcohols:

Here are four of the most molecularly simple acids:

When an alcohol and an acid combine, they form an ester. Here are four typical esters you’d find in everyday, middle-of-the-road rums.

There will be no test on the above, but it is important to grasp that the flavor in distilled spirits derives from a complex stew of different organic compounds, including those above. Each organic compound is like an instrument in an orchestra, making its own contribution to the symphony your nose and tongue experience. (Yes, I’m purposefully omitting flavors induced by aging. That’s another story for another time.)

It’s also important to know that these compounds contribute nearly all of a spirit’s distinctive aroma and flavor character while making up less than 1% of its volume. 99% of a distilled spirit is either ethanol or water, and neither has a particularly strong aroma or flavor. The chemical difference between a bottle of Bacardi Superior and a bottle of Hampden HLCF would fit in a thimble with room to spare.

Now, where do all these organic compounds come from?

The Mighty Yeast Cell

When people first learn about rum, fermentation is usually described like this:

“Molasses and water are mixed, after yeast is added, the result is a fermenting mash. The yeast consumes the sugar and emits alcohol.”

While not incorrect, it dramatically undersells the story; it’s like saying Oppenheimer was a movie about a science project.

Yeast cells are microscopic superfactories squeezed into a single-cell organism. Inside their walls, they feed on sugar and other mash compounds and emit a mix of different flavor compounds along with ethanol. They even knit molecules together within the cell, turning the alcohol and acid molecules they previously made into esters.

Yeast cells also emit heat and carbon dioxide during fermentation. If you’ve ever wondered what makes bread dough rise, it’s carbon dioxide “bubbles” created by the yeast consuming sugars in the dough.

The types and amounts of organic compounds a yeast cell emits are influenced by its food source, i.e., the sugar molecules and other nutrients in the mash. Differences in the chemical composition of cane juice or molasses can cause yeast to emit a different mix of organic compounds. These differences are one aspect of a spirit’s terroir.

The environment where a yeast cell resides also influences the mix of organic compounds it emits. The temperature of the fermenting mash affects what the yeast creates. If the mash gets too warm, the yeast cells can die. (Remember, fermentation creates heat, and yeast can be responsible for its own death unless steps like cooling the mash are taken.)

Likewise, if the mash’s pH drops too low, the yeast may die — some strains are more tolerant of low pH than others. Even the ethanol the yeast emits can kill it if the mash ABV gets too high.

All that said, a bit of controlled stress in a yeast cell’s life can be a good thing, causing it to emit a more desirable mix of flavor compounds. We’ll look at this in a future installment of this series.

A Brief Burst of Biology and Organic Chemistry

Most rum makers use a yeast strain within a species called Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Here, we’ll call it cerevisiae for brevity. Within this species, you’ll find a variety of strains. Some strains are popular for champagne, others for beer, others for bread, and of course, rum.

The primary emission from cerevisiae yeast is ethanol, as you’d expect. As for the other organic compounds it creates, most are on the simpler and lighter end of the molecular spectrum: acids like acetic acid (vinegar), alcohols like propanol and isoamyl alcohol, and esters formed when those particular acids and alcohols combine. The signature esters produced by cerevisiae, including ethyl acetate and isoamyl acetate, give a typical rum its familiar fruity character.

To rephrase this more holistically, cerevisiae yeast produces aromas reminiscent of banana, honey, juicy fruit gum, and apple. Ethyl acetate, the most common ester in rum, smells lightly fruity at low concentrations but turns to solvent or nail polish remover aromas at higher concentrations. Anyone with experience drinking high-ester rums knows that note well.

The Reigning Champion

The vast majority of the rum world runs on a steady stream of S. cerevisiae yeast. Distilleries pick a strain they like and either carefully maintain it in their laboratories or purchase ready-made strains in dry form. Think a packet of Fleischmann’s Dry Yeast, but on a far larger scale! Yeast specialists like AB Biotek and Lallemand specialize in creating bulk and specialized yeast for distilleries around the globe.

With an eye towards consistency from batch to batch, a few rum makers heat their molasses and water before adding yeast. The heat kills any ambient yeast and bacteria, creating a very clean playing field for the cerevisiae yeast to work in.

The Saccharomyces cerevisiae species is the de facto commodity yeast used by most distilleries because it works quickly, is reliable, is well understood, and is readily available. It creates a consistent result, which large-scale rum makers prize.

The Dark Horse

If Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains are the global pop stars of yeast, the punk underground equivalent is Schizosaccharomyces pombe. We’ll call it pombe here for brevity. Taxonomically speaking, pombe is a different species from cerevisiae. A good analogy from the plant kingdom is oak tree vs a sunflower. While they share many common attributes, they are noticeably different in other aspects.

Among the differences is that pombe cells look and reproduce differently from cerevisiae cells. Cerevisiae reproduces by growing small “buds” that pop off and grow to full size, while pombe cells cleave in half, which is why they’re called fission yeast.

If both pombe and cerevisiae are given the same mash, and the resulting washes are chemically compared, we’d usually find different acid and alcohol profiles. Pombe-associated fermentations tend to push the resulting rum toward heavier, more complex aromas, including those coming from medium-chain fatty acids such as:

Similarly, pombe favors creating more complex alcohols, including:

If you’ve heard the terms higher alcohols or fusel alcohols, they are alcohols that are molecularly heavier than ethanol and contribute to spirits that are heavier, oily, and sometimes solventy. Pombe creates a greater percentage of higher alcohols (like the above) than cerevisiae.

Naturally, because pombe produces a different mix of acids and alcohols compared to cerevisiae, the ester profile also changes. Pombe fermentations create more of these esters:

In short, the more molecularly complex mix of organic compounds created by pombe creates a rum with intense tropical-fruit aromas like pineapple and overripe banana, along with a heavier, thicker mouthfeel.

Who’s using pombe yeast today? Jamaica’s rum makers are the flagship pombe users, but it pops up in other regions known for making wild, “weird”, and highly flavorful rums, including Martinique’s Le Galion. Beyond those known users, it’s plausible that Grenada’s River Antoine, Haiti’s clairin producers, and a few Mexican distilleries are also using pombe to some degree, though none have officially confirmed it.

As an aside for any distillers out there, AB Biotek recently released the first commercially available dry Pombe yeast targeted at rum makers:

While pombe yeast creates a heavier and more intense flavor profile, it comes with some operational downsides. While cerevisiae typically finishes fermentation in 1-3 days, pombe can take three or more times as long to complete, while yielding less alcohol. Nonetheless, the divine flavor of Jamaican and other rums makes this tradeoff worth it.

Conclusion

Wrapping things up for this initial installment, the above comparison of pombe and cerevisiae yeast assumes similar mashes and environmental conditions. However, pombe has a superpower that cerevisiae mostly lacks: when pombe cells are stressed in the right way, they turn on the flavor production afterburners. Cerevisiae responds to stress as well, but pombe is much more at home in the low-pH, bacteria-laced conditions associated with some heavy-rum fermentations.

That stress, along with another microbial actor, is where things get really weird, wild, and wonderful. Pombe yeast by itself can’t create high-ester flavor bombs like Hampden DOK or Long Pond TECC. Pombe is often the foundation of such rums, but only when paired with techniques you won’t find in regular rum making. The next installment in this series jumps headfirst into this topic.

A hearty thank you to Brett Steigerwaldt for reviewing the above for me prior to publishing.

The Caribbean rum family recently lost one of its most respected and enduring champions. Patrick Mayers of Barbados passed away on April 8th, 2026, at age 84. He leaves a legacy inseparable from the modern evolution of Caribbean rum.

When we look at today’s vibrant landscape of Caribbean rum producers, it’s easy to forget how uncertain things were in the latter half of the 20th century as the British colonial system came to an end. Newly independent nations such as Jamaica, Barbados, Guyana, Trinidad, and St. Lucia were striving to find their place in the global economy. At the time, most distilleries were largely invisible, selling bulk rum to blenders rather than building their own brands. Iconic brands that help define the category—El Dorado, Chairman’s Reserve, Foursquare, Worthy Park, Monymusk, and many more, simply didn’t exist.

To survive and ultimately thrive in this post-colonial era, the rum makers of CARICOM nations (mostly comprised of former British Caribbean colonies) pooled their individual resources to claim a seat at the global economic trade table. Unlike rum makers in Puerto Rico, the USVI, and the French Caribbean, which received tax breaks from their respective parent countries, CARICOM rum makers would have a decades-long journey to a level playing field, economically speaking.

Leading the way during a pivotal period were people like Patrick Mayers from Barbados, Yesu Persaud from Guyana, and Evon Brown from Jamaica. All headed major distilleries while also collaborating on issues of concern to rum makers in all CARICOM nations. It has been an honor for me to get to know each of them on a personal level and later interview them. A common thread in all our individual conversations was the deep respect and admiration they had for each other.

A Life in Rum

Patrick’s life extended well beyond rum, encompassing deep commitments to family, country, and community. Still, it is through the lens of rum that many of us came to know him.

Born during World War II, Patrick was the son of a Tate & Lyle employee. His own entry into the industry began as a rum store clerk at the West India Rum Refinery (WIRR), known today as the West Indies Rum Distillery, or Stade’s Rum Distillery.

At the time, WIRR was owned by Goddard Enterprises, a Barbados-based conglomerate with a stake in many island enterprises. Patrick rose quickly through Goddard’s ranks, including time as WIRR’s Managing Director, and was Goddard’s Deputy Managing Director when he retired.

During his tenure overseeing WIRR, several developments of lasting importance took place:

• The distillery was renamed the West Indies Rum Distillery.

• WIRR became a long-time supplier of rum to a then small brand called Malibu.

• WIRR acquired a one-third stake in National Rums of Jamaica.

Yet Patrick’s most consequential work may have come through his involvement with the West Indies Rum and Spirits Producers’ Association, aka WIRSPA. Founded in 1971, WIRSPA became the central forum through which CARICOM producers coordinated their efforts. Patrick became involved early and would go on to serve as Chairman three times, spanning a total of 13 years.

Those of a certain age may remember NAFTA and the CBI (Caribbean Basin Initiative). Patrick represented WIRSPA’s members in US Congressional hearings, as well as during Lomé Convention negotiations, a series of trade and aid agreements between the European Economic Community (EEC) and African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) nations.

But it was Patrick’s third term, from 1998-2007, that may be his biggest legacy in the rum domain. This term spanned the inception and early years of the Caribbean Rum Sector Programme. Utilizing European Union-provided funding, many iconic rum makers, including Appleton Estate, St. Lucia Distillers, Foursquare, Mount Gay, Worthy Park, Hampden Estate, and many more, upgraded their equipment and processes to more effectively compete as premium, branded rum. It’s impossible to overstate how much this program changed the future trajectory of CARICOM rum makers, and Patrick was at the helm during the program’s inception and early years.

On a personal note, the Caribbean Rum Sector Programme facilitated my first trip to Jamaica’s rum distilleries in 2016. It was that experience that ignited a passion within me to travel to and thoroughly document today’s Caribbean rum industry. The end result, published ten years later, was my book, Modern Caribbean Rum. In that time, I also began serving as WIRSPA’s Community Envoy.

A Personal Note

After Patrick handed off the WIRSPA chairmanship to Frank Ward in 2007, he became Chairman Emeritus, which he took very seriously. After starting in the community envoy role, I also had many hour-long, wide-ranging phone calls with Patrick, covering past, present, and future subjects. His enthusiastic hellos still linger in my memory.

In 2023 I interviewed Patrick for WIRSPA’s Icon Series, which documents the stories of people who’ve played vital roles in Caribbean rum over the past 60 years. My interview with Patrick is on YouTube:

Patrick Mayers of West Indies Rum Distillery and WIRSPA Chairman Emeritus

I met Patrick twice in person while in Barbados. Our first meeting was in 2021 while COVID still had everyone on high alert. Patrick, his wife Ann, and I sat outside - a safe distance apart, getting to know each other for four hours. In 2023 I was finally able to meet Patrick and Ann at their home. Again, the hours flew by until we had to depart for another engagement.

With Patrick’s passing, I find myself thinking of his humble nature, his devotion to family and friends, and his willingness to serve others for the greater good. The Caribbean rum family will miss his quiet strength and generous spirit.

France-based Pernod Ricard and US-based Brown-Forman, both large-scale alcoholic beverage conglomerates, recently confirmed that they are in discussions described as a “merger of equals.” When such mergers become a possibility, my thoughts turn to what that might mean for the rum brands involved.

Pernod Ricard’s flagship rum brand is Havana Club—the Cuban-made version. Pernod also owns a majority stake in La Hechicera from Colombia. As for Brown-Forman, it acquired the Diplomatico brand a few years ago. However, the distillery that makes Diplomatico, Destilerías Unidas (DUSA), was not part of the transaction.

Brands as Team Players

Most conglomerates like Pernod and Brown-Forman operate like a sports team, with each brand as a player. Some are star players and receive much of the marketing attention. Others are journeyman players, filling a particular role necessary to field a whole team. A baseball team without a catcher is hobbled compared to one with a competent catcher.

Within the spirits industry, a conglomerate’s star player opens doors for the company’s other players. Pernod’s reps selling Jameson and Absolut have more than just a foot in the door with distributors and on-premise accounts, so that they can incorporate smaller brands like La Hechicera, Olmeca tequila, and Redbreast Irish whiskey into their dealmaking. A broad portfolio covering the major spirit and liqueur categories can help create diversification and, hopefully, steady income, which is what big companies crave. Look at the truly big players like Bacardi, Diageo, LVMH, etc., and you’ll find they have a brand at each position, e.g., vodka, Scotch whisky, American whiskey, rum, tequila, cognac, and so forth.

When two businesses merge, all assets are evaluated to see how they fit into the new team structure. Duplicate roles without a strong reason otherwise are eliminated. When it’s employees, layoffs occur. When it comes to brands, they’re sold off or otherwise traded.

Mergers aren’t the only reason why a spirits conglomerate might dispose of a portfolio brand. A brand might simply be underperforming. Or a portfolio as a whole might be struggling, perhaps by over-diversification. Selling off non-strategic brands raises cash and provides a sharper focus for the remaining brands.

Back to the Future

With the above context in mind, let’s ponder which brands could have new corporate owners at some point. The potential Brown-Forman / Pernod Ricard merger is a good place to start because we know all the players involved:

• Havana Club (Cuban-made)

• La Hechicera (majority ownership)

• Diplomatico

Malibu (Pernod Ricard) isn’t listed here as it’s a rum-based drink rather than rum.

What notable here is that all three brands are Spanish-heritage style rums with significant stylistic overlap. I have no specific knowledge of either company’s plans, but Havana Club is by far the most well-known and strategically important, so it is unlikely to go anywhere. As for the others, we’ll have to wait and see.

In a broader context, the spirits industry has been under enormous financial pressure over the last year or so, due in part to an overall decline in drinking, tariff-war challenges, and a “bust” following the COVID-era “boom.” The biggest players are no exception, and a recent article notes, Major Spirits Brands Are Sitting on a $22B Glut of Unsold Inventory. The companies listed in the article are Diageo, Pernod Ricard, Campari, Brown-Forman, and Remy Cointreau.

Word on the street is that at least one—and possibly more—marquee rum brands are quietly being shopped around. I won’t speculate here, but it’s a useful exercise to enumerate all the big players and their rum brand portfolios. Perhaps consider who may be particularly in a pickle, so to speak. Also, consider that publicly traded companies may be under more investor pressure than privately held companies.

Here’s a snapshot of the situation today, along with color commentary:

Bacardi Limited (Privately Held)

• Bacardi / Havana Club (USA-only brand) / Castillo

• Banks

• Pyrat

Bacardi clearly won’t be parting with its legendary, house origin brands. However, Banks and Pyrat were acquisitions.

Diageo (Publicly Traded)

• Captain Morgan

• Zacapa (co-owned with the Botran family)

• Bundaberg

• Don Papa

• McDowell’s No. 1

Pernod Ricard (Publicly Traded)

• Havana Club (50/50 joint venture with Cuba Ron S.A., a Cuban-state entity)

• La Hechicera

Havana Club is unlikely to go anywhere, given how much Pernod Ricard invested in creating the partnership with the Cuban government, as well as Havana Club’s global recognition.

While not listed above, Pernod Ricard has a stake in Bumbu that could become a majority share. (Yes, Bumbu has an actual rum among its offerings.)

Campari Group (Publicly Traded)

• Appleton Estate / Wray & Nephew / Kingston 62 / Coruba

• Trois Rivières

• La Mauny

• Duquesne

Appleton is a marquee rum brand, and Campari’s ownership is well-known. The Martinique brands, less so outside of France.

Rémy Cointreau (Publicly Traded)

• Mount Gay

Rémy Cointreau has invested quite a bit of money into Mount Gay in the last decade, including a new sugar mill, acquisition of sugarcane fields, and distillery upgrades.

Brown-Forman (Publicly Traded)

• Diplomatico

LVMH (Publicly Traded)

• Eminente (exact ownership structure is unclear, but may involve Cuba Ron S.A.)

Suntory Global Spirits (Privately Held)

• Cruzan

La Martiniquaise-Bardinet (Privately Held)

• Saint-James

• Depaz

• Dillon

• Bally

• Rhum DBM

• Domaine de Bellevue

• Rivière du Mât

• Cacique

• Negrita

• Old Nick

• Island Signature Rum

La Martiniquaise-Bardinet has a very strong position in the French market and owns a majority stake in Marie Brizard Wine & Spirits. Clearly, they don’t see an issue holding multiple rum brands making the same type of rum. See France’s Largest Rum Maker Hides in Plain Sight for a deep dive on this company.

Spiribam / Groupe Bernard Hayot (Privately Held)

• Rhum Clément

• Rhum J.M.

• Chairman’s Reserve

• Admiral Rodney

• Bounty

• La Belle Cabresse

• La Cayennaise

• Cœur de Chauffe

• Arcane

• Beach House

While originally rum-only, Spiribam has aggressively expanded beyond French rum in recent years. Like La Martiniquaise-Bardinet, they don’t see an issue holding multiple rum brands offering similar styles of rum.

Maison Ferrand (Privately Held)

• Planteray (Formerly Plantation)

• Stade’s

• Canerock

Not a traditional conglomerate like bigger players like LVMH. All of Ferrand’s brands began as internal projects. The acquisition of the West Indies Rum Distillery in Barbados didn’t include brands.

Edrington (Privately Held)

• Brugal

Mostly focused on whisky/whiskey. Brugal is its only non-whisky brand.

William Grant & Sons (Privately Held)

• Sailor Jerry

• O.V.D. (Old Vatted Demerara)

• Wood’s

Proximo Spirits (Privately Held)

• Kraken

While lesser known than many of the other conglomerates, they are a tequila powerhouse, leading with Jose Cuervo. Another portfolio heavy hitter is Bushmills. Proximo also distributes Ron Matusalem in the US, but doesn’t appear to own the brand. In 2025, Proximo divested US-based Owney’s Rum.

Wrap-Up

While a distillery or brand changing corporate ownership might seem of minor consequence, numerous ownership changes in the past two decades prove otherwise. Conglomerates often go bargain-hunting, then invest heavily in sprucing up their acquisitions. Done right, these investments help elevate the rum category as a whole. Among recent purchases:

• Edrington’s purchase of Brugal in 2008

• Diageo’s purchase of 50% of Zacapa in 2011

• Campari’s purchase of Wray & Nephew / Appleton in 2012.

• Rémy Cointreau’s purchase of the Mount Gay distillery in 2014.

• Spiribam’s purchase of St. Lucia Distillers in 2016

• Maison Ferrand’s purchase of West Indies Rum Distillery in 2017. (The Stade’s brand is one result of the purchase.)

That’s all for now! Post your thoughts (or speculation!) in the comments.

How cool would it be to step back in time to visit Jamaica’s Appleton Estate in 1950? While time machines are still a way off, a Wray & Nephew brochure from the era and other archival photos provide a surprisingly detailed look at the company’s rum making 75 years ago.

The brochure is titled “The Story of Dagger Jamaica Rum.” While undated, the images and styling suggest an early 1950s publishing date. Within its 32 pages, numerous black-and-white images and textual descriptions take us on a journey from the cane fields to the bottling line. Let’s “step inside” the brochure and mentally transport ourselves to 1950s Jamaica.

Setting the Stage

Jamaica is still a British colony in 1950, but it is rapidly acquiring modern amenities. The arrival of affordable air travel in the post-WWII era boosted its popularity as a tourist destination. Wray & Nephew is owned by Percy Lindo, of Lindo Brothers fame, though within a decade, he would sell the company to Lascelles DeMercado and the Henriques Brothers.

Wray & Nephew’s distillery, Appleton Estate, is an integrated sugar mill and rum making operation at the time. Unfortunately, the subsequent steep decline in Caribbean sugar economics would shutter many sugar mills, leaving distilleries such as Appleton separated from the factories that once supplied their molasses.

Pot distillation was the only game in town for Jamaican rum making in 1950. It would be another decade before column distillation gained a foothold in Jamaica’s rum distilleries.

In a nod to practicality and the export market, Wray & Nephew’s aging bonds and bottling operations are 60 miles east of Appleton Estate in Kingston. So large is Wray & Nephew’s aging stock that the company owns four massive aging warehouses for its rum to slumber under the eye of Jamaica’s excise officials.

Wray & Nephew has over a dozen rums in its portfolio, but it’s the Dagger line (One, Two, and Three Dagger) that’s most heavily promoted. Appleton Estate Special had launched less than a decade earlier, but hadn’t yet acquired the prestige of Appleton Estate rum today.

In what follows, I will mix quotes from the aforementioned brochure, photographs, and my own editorial comments. My notes are in regular text like this, while….

Text sections formatted like this are taken directly from the brochure.

The Tour Begins – Sugarcane Mill

Our tour begins with a long drive out to Cockpit Country, where Appleton Estate sits alongside the Black River. Sugarcane fields extend in all directions. The air is hot, and the noise from the sugar factory makes it hard to hear.

The cane must arrive at the sugar mill as soon after cutting as possible. All manner of conveyances are used from ox-wagon to the motor tractor, truck, and the special narrow gauge railway…. What’s that across the road? … a crane that lifts whole cart loads of sugar cane to the conveyor.

Up the conveyor belt it goes to the “chopper”— a series of heavy sharp knives on a whirling shaft…. The “crusher” operates just like the family clothes wringer; the rollers are made of hard steel, with peculiarly patterned indentations—the diameter about 26 inches. Here is where the last drop of cane juice is squeezed out…

From there the juice passes on to the evaporator station for 75% of the water to be boiled off… But it is the job of the “vacuum pans” to boil off the balance of the water, thereby crystallizing the syrup of the original cane juice, to make sugar. These crystals, however, are floating around in the glucose content which we call molasses.

Fermentation

Sugar factory tour complete, we now walk 50 meters to the adjoining distillery complex and enter the fermentation hall.

The first step in making rum is the mixing of molasses and water together in a large tank. The result is called “wash.” We tried to get the recipe but the proportions are one of the Distillery’s secrets—a secret that provides Dagger Rum with its characteristic fineness and inimitable flavour.

Nothing surprising here. However… if we go reread the 1947 Dagger advertisement shown earlier, it says, “This Appleton Rum is made by … the sugarcane juice without ‘extracting any sugar and this gives it its distinctive flavour….”

At first glance, this mention of sugarcane juice is very surprising! Was Appleton really making rhum agricole? Not necessarily. The sugarcane juice mentioned may be concentrated cane juice, that is, cane syrup. A cane syrup fermentation yields a flavor closer to a molasses fermentation than a raw cane juice fermentation.

But again, the brochure says molasses. Maybe we can blame marketing copy, which isn’t always so great at conveying these small but important details. In any event, it’s an interesting detail to file away for future investigation.

The “wash” is pumped into a series of fermenting vats, each vat holding 4,400 gallons. In these large vats fermentation takes place for about 72 hours. At the end of this time fermentation ceases. The “wash” is now ready for distillation.

The 72-hour fermentation is dwelling on for a bit. It’s typical duration for a mainstream rum, but the truly bold, funky flavors Jamaican rum is famous for come from much longer fermentations, à la Hampden and Long Pond.

Just like today, Jamaican rum of the mid-20^th century had a wide spectrum of flavor intensities. While we’d like to imagine that old-school Wray & Nephew rums were funk bombs, historical evidence and tastings of old W&N samples suggest otherwise. Vive la difference!

Distillation

A “charge” of from 1,200 to 2,000 gallons of fermented “wash” is run into the pot-still. Vapours form, which pass through a “low wine” and a “high wine” retort. It is in these two retorts that the vapours pick up the bouquet and flavour that distinguishes Jamaica Rum. The vapours are then condensed into a crystal clear liquid which bubbles forth from the still as new Jamaica Rum.

While the pictures above unfortunately don’t show the entire still, the reference to low wine and high wine retorts makes it clear that Appleton was using double retort pot stills. A single distillation pass goes through three distinct enrichment phases and yields rum at 80% ABV or higher. Double retort stills are almost synonymous with Caribbean rum making, and Jamaican rum in particular.

The size of the wash batches enables us to infer the pot still sizes, so likely Appleton had a set of stills between 1,200 and 2,000 gallons. A decade or two later, Appleton’s “pot still row” would be upgraded to 5 double-retort stills, each 5,000 gallons in size.

Aging, Blending, and Bottling

With our visit to Appleton Estate complete, it’s time to hitch a ride back to Kingston in the cab of one of the many Wray & Nephew rum tanker trucks headed that way. Our first stop is an aging warehouse.

Over two million gallons of Dagger Rum rest in casks, and in five and ten thousand gallon oaken vats. These are stored in four large bonded Government warehouses that were built privately by J. Wray & Nephew Ltd., exclusively for ageing their Dagger Rums.

Of interest here is aging in five- and ten-thousand-gallon vats, i.e., “vatted rum.” The practice was quite common at the time, allowing rum to mellow over long durations without becoming overly oaky. However, there’s a school of thought today that age statements shouldn’t apply to vat-aged rum. Aging in small casks has become the norm.

Also of note, the image of vats above was previously used in a 1938 story about the company, stating that it had a million gallons aging. Roughly a decade later, Wray & Nephew had double that amount, a significant expansion despite the interruption of World War II.

While not shown in the brochure tour, fellow historian Tim Glazner has given me the OK to include two photos from the early-1940s photos that show blending and bottling operations. The first shows what appears to be filtering a batch of rum. The second shows workers applying labels to what appears to be “white proof” rum, a forerunner of Wray & Nephew White Overproof.

Tour completed, we reluctantly return to our time machine. But before boarding, we enjoy one final Daggeree cocktail.

I have ideas for a more photo-based tours from the past. Was this interesting? Let me know what you think in the comments!

To deeply understand the rum world, you need to know the key players and how they’re interrelated. So, today we’re looking at France’s largest rum maker, a company whose name and scale are virtually unknown except to a few insiders. Some of their brands are marquee players in the enthusiast world, but, just like icebergs, only 10% of the story is above the waterline.

French billionaire Jean-Pierre Cayard is the owner of Compagnie Financière Européenne de Prises de Participation, a mouthful of a name mercifully abbreviated to COFEPP. Technically, it’s a holding company with two better-known child companies: Bardinet and La Martiniquaise. In the trade, Bardinet and La Martiniquaise are collectively known as La Martiniquaise-Bardinet.

Size-wise, COFEPP is France’s third-largest alcohol beverage company, smaller than Pernod Ricard and LVMH, but bigger than Rémy Cointreau. If we limit the scope to only spirits, COFEPP is arguably France’s 2^nd largest spirit company. And while COFEPP is France’s largest rum company, it also brings in healthy revenues via a broad portfolio of wine and other spirits, with Cutty Sark among its better-known holdings. The company also has a majority ownership in Marie Brizard Wine and Spirits.

Connecting the dots between COFEPP and its many holdings, including Saint-James and Negrita, is a herculean task. Having spent several hours digging through corporate filings, I couldn’t find any clear rhyme or reason why certain COFEPP rum assets are under Bardinet and others under La Martiniquaise. In what follows, I’ve simplified a few esoteric details to avoid bogging down the story.

The infographic below provides a high-level overview of COFEPP’s rum holdings. For further details, read on.

Breaking it Down

Collectively, COFEPP owns five rum distilleries and partially owns three more.

On Martinique:

• Saint-James (Saint-James, Bally brands)

• Depaz (Depaz, Dillon brands)

• Le Galion (partial ownership)

On Guadeloupe / Marie-Galante:

• Bellevue Marie-Galante (Bellevue brand)

• Bonne Mère (Rhum DBM brand)

• Poisson (partial ownership)

• Sucreries Et Rhumeries de Marie-Galante (partial ownership)

On Réunion:

• Rivière du Mât (Rivière du Mât brand)

Of these eight distilleries, seven are among France’s biggest rum distilleries. Based on the quota data described below, COFEPP owns the biggest distilleries in Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Réunion.

Beyond the distillery-associated brands above, COFEPP’s value brands are Negrita and Old Nick, both of which are readily available in French grocery stores. Given COFEPP’s significant production capacity in both the Caribbean and Indian Ocean (Réunion), you might ask who makes Negrita and Old Nick.

Negrita’s label says Îles Françaises du Rhum, which isn’t one of the phrases legally protected by France’s seven rum GIs. Basically, the label is saying “French island rum.” Negrita’s brand page helpfully notes — in French: Guadeloupe, Martinique and Réunion Island – molasses rums or agricultural rums, old or young.

Old Nick is a different story; its label states Rhum des Antilles françaises. This is an GI-protected phrase and is restricted to molasses or cane juice rum from Martinique or Guadeloupe. (More info on this GI here.)

Quotas, Rhum Agricole, and Rhum Traditionnel

To further illustrate how big COFEPP is within the French rum ecosystem, we can look at the production quota amounts assigned to each distillery. A single national quota, currently 153,000 hectoliters of pure alcohol per year, is distributed across the four overseas departments (e.g., Martinique) and then suballocated to individual distilleries, somewhat proportionally to their production capacity. It’s an imperfect system, but it offers the most data we have to compare distillery output. To obtain the numbers below, I put information from the most recent quota legislation (July 3^rd 2025) into a spreadsheet and got to work.

Before we get to the stats, a refresher: per French GIs, rhum agricole is made from cane juice, while rhum traditionnel is made from molasses.

Here are three key stats that highlight just how big COFEPP is in French rum:

• Collectively, COFEPP-owned or partially owned distilleries make up 63% of France’s 153,000 hectoliter rum quota.

• COFEPP distilleries have 84% of France’s quota for rhum traditionnel production. Guadeloupe’s Bonne Mère is the biggest, and Rivière du Mât in Réunion isn’t far behind. The remaining rhum traditionnel quota (16%) is held by Isautier and Savanna on Réunion. (Both also make rhum agricole.)

• For Martinique rhum agricole production, Saint-James and Depaz hold the first- and third-largest quotas. Combined, they have 43% of Martinique’s agricole quota. (Note: what we think of as the Depaz distillery is referred to as Dillon in the quota legislation.)

As an aside, many enthusiasts think cane juice is synonymous with French rum. The quotas show otherwise: 51% of the quota goes to rhum agricole, and 49% goes to rhum traditionnel. However, rhum agricole gets more attention from enthusiasts, primarily for its high-end bottlings. In contrast, rhum traditionnel has mostly been the domain of budget rums. This seems to be changing with Rhum DBM.

While there are many more details I could add here, I think you get the point about COFEPP’s huge position in the French rum market. However, COFEPP / La Martiniquaise-Bardinet isn’t France’s only rum maker with multiple distilleries in multiple regions. I’ll say more about this in a future post.

When we look at how rum is marketed, we often see brand “founding” dates several centuries in the past. To wit:

• Bacardi 1862

• Mount Gay 1703

• Saint-James 1765

• Worthy Park 1749

• Brugal 1888

• Angostura 1824

However, students of history need to distinguish between when a distillery started making rum and when that distillery name became a brand name. For example, the Mount Gay distillery dates to 1703, but “Mount Gay Rum” as a brand didn’t appear on store shelves until circa 1930.

This brings us to Appleton Estate 1749. Like Mount Gay, Appleton Estate—the distillery, and Appleton Estate—the brand, are also separated by nearly 200 years. That itself isn’t surprising, but there’s an interesting story about the very early days of the Appleton Estate brand.

Let’s start with the now well-known basics. The Appleton distillery dates to 1749—or even earlier, per research by rum historian Ian Williams. Appleton Estate’s parent company, J. Wray & Nephew, pegs its start date to 1825, when John Wray opened a Kingston tavern.

By the late 1800s, Wray & Nephew had become importers and merchants, buying and blending rums from various sources and selling them under the J. Wray & Nephew brand. No later than 1899, we see Wray & Nephew selling expressions like Green Seal, Black Seal, and Three Dagger.

The Wray & Nephew brand underpinned all the company’s expressions, as seen in this 1938 advertisement for Three Dagger rum.

Enter Appleton

In 1916, the Lindo Brothers purchased both Appleton Estate and J. Wray & Nephew from separate owners. It was the first time that Appleton and J. Wray & Nephew existed under the same ownership. The new owners wasted little time launching an Applemony expression under the J. Wray & Nephew brand. The Applemony name comes from Appleton and Monymusk, which the Lindo Brothers also owned.

Nonetheless, Applemony isn’t Appleton Estate—the brand. It wasn’t until the 1944 launch of Appleton Estate Special that we see the distillery’s name take the lead role on a Wray & Nephew bottle. At the time, Appleton Estate Special was said to be a clean, light-bodied rum of uniform high quality and rich, distinctive flavour.

Bend Down

Earlier, I said that Appleton Estate Special launched in 1944; that’s the earliest mention I can find. However, Special may have “informally” launched a few years earlier. In his book, 56 Years in the Liquor Industry (and still counting), Wray & Nephew alumnus and rum industry legend Michael Delevante writes:

During the second war when Scotch was unavailable. Special was sold in clubs at 40% ABV. an illegal strength for rum in those days It had to be kept under the bar to avoid scrutiny by Excise officers, so it earned the name Bend Down since the bartender had to bend down to retrieve the bottle

A 1975 Jamaica Gleaner article expands on the above:

YES, SOME PEOPLE, around the country parts called it whisky, but it really was rum —a much finer, smoother rum than the Black Seal and Applemony that were quite popular then. We’re talking about the 1940’s, during the Second World War, when many accustomed tastes could not be indulged…

But the rum that was then called whisky also got another name —“Ben’ Down”! — because of a provision which prohibited rum that was not of a certain “proof” from being sold in ordinary bars and shops. So, Appleton Estate Special, which is the rum that was called whisky, was supposed to be retailed only in private clubs. But this Appleton Special quickly became so widely preferred by Jamaicans in general, that the bars and shops went ahead and sold it. Only they didn’t display it publicly, so when you ordered a drink the barkeeper had to bend down and fetch it from under the counter… It wouldn’t have been wise to say “Appleton Special” out loud in the shop, so the customer would whisper that he wanted a drink of “Ben’ Down”.

That’s all for now. I’m off to Miami this week to take part in the Miami Rum Congress, drink rum, and see some friends. Never fear, I’ve got more stories cooking for when I return.

As Planteray’s Mister Fogg Navy Rum, Sail N° 2 reaches store shelves, I’ve seen a wave of questions about what it is, how it relates to Sail N° 1, and how closely it tracks historical Royal Navy rum. While I don’t work for Planteray, my research into Royal Navy and London Dock rums directly informed the project, and I’ve had a front-row view of its development. What follows is some background on how Mister Fogg came to be, and answers to many of the questions I see most often.

Brief Background of Mister Fogg Navy Rum.

In late 2018, Planteray (Plantation at the time) asked me to research Royal Navy and London Dock rum and write a short book about what I learned. I handed in a set of chapters six months later, but Alexandre Gabriel and I continued discussing the topic. Based on references to the Royal Navy aging their rum in large open vats, Alexandre modified two of his vats in France to make a rum inspired by the techniques and rums the Royal Navy used.

The first batch of Mister Fogg (“Sail N° 1”) was launched at Tales of the Cocktail in 2024, and a second batch (Sail N° 2) was released a year later. While they are different blends, both rely on the style of rums that the Royal Navy was known to use.

For more details on the Mister Fogg project, see this story:

Around the same time, Wonk Press, my book publishing company, released The Rum Never Sets. The book is a greatly expanded version of what I wrote in 2019 and includes chapters by Alexandre that connect the Mister Fogg project to the history that inspired it.

Mister Fogg Q&A

Here are some brief answers to some of the frequent questions about Mister Fogg navy rum.

Who is Mister Fogg?

When Charles Tobias, founder of Pusser’s Rum, started his project, he was connected to Michael Fogg, an employee of the company that sold the component rums to the Royal Navy. Charles later hired Michael, who served for several decades as the commercial director and brand ambassador for Pusser’s.

I met and became friends with Michael during my research. He shared many anecdotes and stories, as well as documents connecting key topics in my research. When Michael passed away in 2020, Alexandre named the rum in his honor, with permission from Michael’s wife, Jayne.

This Cocktail Wonk article tells Michael Fogg’s story in more detail: Remembering Michael Fogg – Conservator of Rum’s Legacy

Is Mister Fogg a Recreation of the Royal Navy Rum?

No, and that’s intentional. Alexandre drew on the techniques and types of rum the Royal Navy used, but creating a replica of the Royal Navy’s recipe at a specific point in time wasn’t the goal. If you want to know exactly what Royal Navy rum tasted like, Black Tot Last Consignment is the real deal. It’s actual Royal Navy rum made in the 1950s and 1960s.

How do I tell Which Edition of Mister Fogg I have?

It’s easy, once you know where to look. While the main label is similar for both editions, the neck band below the cork reads either Sail N° 1 or Sail N° 2.

Also, if you have both bottles, see if you can spot all the changes in the main label imagery and text.

Why Sail N° 1 and Sail N° 2?

The two open vats used to make Mister Fogg hold enough rum to make around 35,000 bottles. Because the rum continuously flows between the two vats for many months, only one batch can be made at a time.

Anticipating future demand for this rum beyond just 35,000 bottles, Planteray planned a series of sequential limited editions. The two batches so far share the same primary name, Mister Fogg, but are differentiated by a batch number, i.e., Sail N° 1, Sail N° 2, etc. The two batches are distinctly different, as noted in the next question.

Will there be a Sail N° 3? I certainly hope so! But there’s nothing I can report on thus far.

Are Sail N° 1 and Sail N° 2 the same?

No, and that’s also intentional. Most rum releases rely on a recipe that’s used repeatedly to make each batch. But as my research turned up, the rums that the Royal Navy used changed frequently due to pricing and availability. However, the navy blender(s) sought to retain the core flavor profile. This ethos influenced how the two Mister Fogg batches are different.

The Sail N° 1 blend is:

• 43% Barbados: West Indies Rum Distillery

• 36% Trinidad: Trinidad Distillers Ltd (aka Angostura)

• 17% Guyana: Demerara Distillers Ltd

• 4% Jamaica: Clarendon and Long Pond

The Sail N° 2 blend is:

• 35% Trinidad: Trinidad Distillers Ltd (aka Angostura)

• 34% Barbados: West Indies Rum Distillery

• 20% Guyana: Demerara Distillers Ltd

• 6% Mauritius: St Aubin Distillery (cane juice)

• 5% Jamaica: Clarendon, Long Pond, and Hampden

As a point of reference, the Royal Navy’s blend in the mid-1900s was:

• 60% Demerara (mostly pot still)

• 30% Trinidad (mostly or entirely Caroni)

• 10% other (changed over time, but included Barbados, Australia, Natal, and Mauritius)

The exact recipe used in 1962 is detailed in The Rum Never Sets book.

How do Sail N° 1 and Sail N° 2 Compare – Taste-Wise?

Everyone’s palate is different, but here’s my take.

Sail N° 1 has distinct spiciness and dried-fruit notes that make me think of fruitcake. Some people say “cinnamon,” but I’d say “cinnamon-adjacent”. I’ve wondered about infusing a bottle of OFTD with fruitcake to see how close the result is to Sail N° 1.

Sail N° 2 is less spicy and less dried fruit. It’s significantly closer in flavor profile to actual Royal Navy rum and rums that seek to replicate that flavor. So far, the ratio of people preferring one over the other is roughly 50/50 in my experience.

What Can I Make with Mister Fogg?

Again, this is a matter of personal taste, and I see folks using Mister Fogg in daiquiris and Mai-Tais. From my perspective, using it as the sole rum in a Navy Grog is a no-brainer. I think it’s also well-suited as a one-rum solution for recipes using the classic Don the Beachcomber blend of Demerara, Jamaica, and something lighter. Think 1934 Zombie or Jet Pilot here.

Pro-tip: Sail N° 1 in particular works well in stirred, rum-forward drinks. Consider the Foggroni, a rum-based Negroni with adjusted component ratios:

Foggroni – Matt Pietrek (2024)

• 1.5 oz Mister Fogg (Sail N° 1 preferred)

• 1 oz sweet red vermouth

• 0.75 oz Campari

Stir over ice. Strain into a chilled coupe or other small vessel

Why Can’t I Find Sail N° 1?

Planteray makes so many expressions that it’s not feasible to release each in every market around the globe. For reasons I’m not privy to, Sail No. 1 was designated for the US market; however, a small number of bottles found their way to certain EU markets. I’m told that Sail N° 2 is destined for the US and most major EU markets, but not the UK as of yet.

Is Mister Fogg Sweetened? If so, Why?

Per the label, both Sail N° 1 and Sail N° 2 have a dosage of 4.8 g/L. In this case, the dosage is from burnt sugar cooked in a copper kettle in Barbados.

While this may raise some eyebrows, especially those with strong feelings about additive-free rum, it’s historically consistent with Royal Navy practice. Rather than using E150a as many modern spirits do, the Royal Navy used moderately burnt caramel to color their rum. The small amount of sugar remaining in the caramel affected the measured alcoholic strength. (See next question for further details.)

The Royal Navy documented this practice in several 1900s-era victualling manuals, and Mister Fogg specifically emulates this historical practice.

Why is Mister Fogg bottled at 55.7% ABV, not 57% ABV, or 54.5% ABV?

The traditional tool used to measure alcoholic strength is known as a hydrometer. This simple tool uses the relative density of ethanol and water to ascertain the percentage of alcohol. The presence of anything in the spirit other than ethanol or water alters (“obscures”) the stated percentage, albeit in a consistent manner.

The Royal Navy victualling manual notes that without the added caramel, a hydrometer would measure the navy’s rum at 2.5 degrees underproof. But with caramel, the hydrometer reads 4.5 degrees underproof. In ABV units, with caramel, 54.5% ABV, without caramel, 55.7% ABV.

These days, ABV is measured using a much more reliable method that ignores the obscuration effect. The Mister Fogg label states an ABV of 55.7% ABV using this method. However, if the ABV were measured with a hydrometer, the 4.8 gr/liter of dosage in Mister Fogg would cause the hydrometer to read 54.5% ABV.

Simply put, Mister Fogg is emulating what the Royal Navy blenders did.

That’s all for now! Did I miss anything? Leave your questions in the comments.

The end of 2025 marks my 12th year as a spirits and drinks writer. As each year ends, I review which stories received the most responses, which were my sentimental favorites, and a few stats—I’m a techie/engineer at heart, after all.

First, the stats: subscriptions to Rum Wonk grew by 43%, and the paid subscriber count increased by 14%. (A hearty thanks to those who financially support this site!) My total story count was 26, a bit lower than usual. However, preparing for and moving to France takes a lot of time! So does growing a publishing business. My 2026 goal is to get my story count back up.

Top Five Stories by Page Views

Per page views recorded in Google Analytics, here are the top five Rum Wonk posts of 2025. Unsurprisingly, Jamaican rum was the top topic.

Hurricane Melissa’s Impact on Jamaica’s Rum Makers

When Hurricane Melissa devastated Jamaica in October, the global rum community collectively held its breath, awaiting news about the island’s rum makers. While it took many weeks to assess the damage, my top story of the year provided early details.

Jamaica Rum Styles Primer

Gone are the days when “Jamaica rum” was adequate to describe the island’s wide range of rums. Today, Jamaica’s distilleries make a variety of substyles, but all based on the island’s fermentation-derived “funk.” This article and accompanying infographic enumerate the core substyles. While not everyone agreed with my grouping and naming, it sparked some lively conversations around how to think about Jamaican rum.

The Essential Tiki Rum Style That Disappeared

Back in the original era of Tiki drinks (1930s-1960s), Don the Beachcomber and Trader Vic often used “Martinique rum” in their tropical concoctions. But they weren’t using the rhum agricole that’s synonymous with Martinique today. While the island’s producers don’t make this style of rum anymore, other French departments do, and their rums are gaining traction with a new generation of tropical bartenders.

Dunder, Muck, and Acid - Demystifying Jamaica Rum’s Secret Sauce

There’s much myth, misunderstanding, and lore around how Jamaica’s rum makers supercharge flavor creation during fermentation. This story lays out the facts about each of the additional fermentation components that most other rum makers eschew.

Equiano Rum - What Happened?

The rum world was shocked when “Global Rum Ambassador” Ian Burrell announced he was stepping away from the Equiano rum brand that he co-founded. While Burrell alleged that the company’s trademark had been misappropriated, public records show there was much more to the story. Among the details, a company grappling with financing challenges as it sought to grow, and a connection to Uncle Nearest whiskey, itself under pressure from creditors.

Top Five Stories You May Have Missed

Rum Wonk has never been about reviews and chasing the latest “must-have” releases. Instead, the focus is on medium- to -advanced-level topics for dedicated rum enthusiasts. These stories didn’t make the Top Five in page views, but they are prime examples of what this newsletter is about.

Mai Tai Rum(s): Myths and Mistakes

During the tiki revival of the past two decades, it’s almost become gospel that Trader Vic’s “original” Mai Tai recipe called for an ounce each of Jamaican rum and Martinique rhum agricole. However, a close reading of the historical record, including Vic’s own words, shows that 2 ounces of Jamaican rum was always Vic’s preference. And even when Vic started using Martinique rum, it wasn’t rhum agricole. Simply put, things change, and Martinique rhum wasn’t always rhum agricole.

Why does that Indie-Bottled Rum Cost $100?

High-end, independently bottled rums often have eye-watering prices, and European consumers have a much larger selection of such rums. But when you see where the money paid for a bottle goes, you may be shocked that any brand even bothers releasing such rums in the US.

Where Does Mount Gay’s New Silver Rum Fit In?

While the title might seem like a run-of-the-mill review, this story decidedly isn’t. Rums that are colorless and clear are typically lumped into an amorphous “white rum” category, when in reality, most fall into a small set of distinct, well-defined styles. Mount Gay’s new “Silver” rum is an exception, but discussing it provided an opportunity to advocate a more informed and nuanced way to think about clear rums.

It’s Not All About Esters When It Comes to Rum

Esters are a class of organic compounds that give flavor to rum, but other types of organic compounds often dwarf their contribution to a rum’s flavor. However, in high-end rum circles, ester levels are usually the center of attention. This article dives into “volatile compounds,” a much more inclusive and meaningful measurement of rum flavor.

When is a Column Still Not a Column Still?

“Pot still” and “column still” are common ways of classifying rum. But this overly simplistic distinction fuels significant misunderstanding of distillation and flavor. Even some distillers seem to misunderstand the distinction. This can lead to tasting competitions awarding medals based on erroneous data. This story covers the bare basics of distillation theory to expose this common misunderstanding.

Thanks to all who’ve read Rum Wonk stories in 2025. Stay tuned for much more rum-soaked wonkery in 2026!

Many of my posts here go into “how the sausage is made” topics. This time, I’m turning the camera around to take you behind the scenes of Wonk Press, the independent publisher I started with Carrie Smith (aka Mrs. Wonk). In 2016, I had a vision for a no-compromises, deep-dive rum book. I knew no traditional publisher would gamble on it, so Carrie and I decided to do it ourselves. In the years since, Wonk Press has grown into a business that now competes with rum for my time and attention.

2025 was a transformative year for us. We’re very proud of releasing three new books over six months:

• Vestige: Twenty Years of Modern Pinup

• The Rum Never Sets Book

• Royal Navy Rum & London Dock Rum (French Language)

However, just as importantly, albeit less visible, we revamped many of our operations to enable future growth. Like rum companies, we must constantly evolve and respond to events and market forces beyond our control. Here’s a brief peek at what we did this year.

Bringing in Outside Specialists

When we started in 2019, we shipped orders from our home to minimize expenses. When the first batch of Minimalist Tiki arrived, our kitchen table was our shipping station, and cases of books were stashed throughout the house. In time, we graduated to a storage space, and then multiple storage spaces when 16,000 lbs (11 pallets!) of Modern Caribbean Rum arrived.

As 2025 began, it became more cost-effective to use a 3PL (third-party logistics provider) to store and ship our books. The bonus benefit: spending less time packing orders ourselves. It took months of planning and integration, but when our books started shipping from an Illinois warehouse, the payoff was immediate.

Embracing Agility

Our first five books were hardcover and printed in South Korea using the best paper and bindings. However, it’s not economical to print a few dozen copies this way. Economies of scale don’t kick in until 1,000 copies or more, creating a substantial upfront cost for each print run. The bill for printing Modern Caribbean Rum? Ooof — it was tough! A huge monetary risk that thankfully paid off. Had I not already invested six years of my life into it, I might have made a different choice.

So, when we started production on The Rum Never Sets, our smallest book thus far, we decided it made sense to use a softcover, with the same quality paper and offset printers as our prior books. Embracing new printing options enables us to sell to our customers for less, which lets us price our books lower. It also lets us print in smaller quantities and in different geographical regions, which segues nicely into our next big change.

Enhancing Customer Experience

We’ve had high international demand for our books since we started, especially from European rum aficionados. But while our US-based warehouse ships worldwide, shipping rates from couriers like UPS, DHL, and FedEx often cost more than the product itself. Clearly, not an ideal situation for our customers—or for us!

In November, after months of preparation and tackling the issue of per-country VAT and import duties head-on, our UK-based fulfilment partner went live. We can now ship to the UK and the EU at a substantially lower cost than from the US. Is it glamorous work? No. Does it help us sell books? Yes.

Stocking the warehouse with our titles is another non-trivial task. By printing our navy rum books in the UK, the warehouse had them within a few days. We plan to stock the UK warehouse with our other titles in early 2026, likely from our US warehouse. This will be yet another “learning experience” in the freight logistics realm.

Another enhancement for certain customers is the availability of books in their native language. In 2025, we released our first French-language book, Royal Navy Rum and London Dock Rum. Christine Lambert, the well-known spirits expert and author, handled the translation of The Rum Never Sets into French. It’s currently available in the UK and EU, and will soon be stocked in our US warehouse.

Playing in Hard Mode

Completing all the above was a huge undertaking, which we did concurrently with an even larger project. We’d long contemplated transitioning our daily lives to Europe, in part for its vibrant rum communities and many rum-related festivals. In 2025, all the pieces came together, and we arrived in France.

[Hot tip for reading this far - between now and Dec. 19th, 2025, use promo code UPSPIRITS to save 15% on all in-stock Wonk Press Titles.]

What’s next? I have several rum and/or drinks-related books in various states of outline or execution. My 2026 goal is to publish at least one of them while keeping you up to date on the latest rummy happenings here.

Early in my rum immersion, I became fascinated by the story of Royal Navy rum. My curiosity was less about its consumption and more about what was in it. It was a decade before I ventured into archival sources to learn the real story. In those early years, all I could find about the navy’s rum was from rum bloggers and the occasional book like James Pack’s Nelson’s Blood.

The common denominator in what I found was that Royal Navy rum was a blend of rums from Jamaica, British Guiana, Trinidad, and Barbados. However, all these regions make a wide variety of rums, so just listing each region does not a recipe make. This didn’t stop a few brands from marketing “navy style” rum based on little more than these incomplete details.

When I later started digging into navy rum records in earnest, I came across additional details, like the following from the Royal Navy’s 1939 victualling manual:

Navy Rum is purchased in the open market upon sample. It consists of a blend of West Indian (mainly Demerara and Trinidad) with proportions of Natal and Mauritius Rums.

While this is somewhat more helpful than a vague reference to ‘a blend of rums from the British West Indies,’ it raises new questions. What are Natal and Mauritius doing here?” And why aren’t Jamaica and Barbados listed? Did countless books and articles have it all wrong?

Yes and no. During the 20^th century, the origins of the various rums in the navy blend changed early and often. However, Demerara rum consistently accounted for the largest share of the blend. But while ratios and percentages are nice, they’re still not a recipe that you could make to exactly reproduce what the navy made.

Finding the exact rums used and how much of each became my personal grail. However, the longer I looked, the more I despaired that a complete recipe as used by the Navy was still in existence.

A Fortuitous Encounter

In September of 2023, a gentleman named Arthur Roberts commented on an article I’d written a few years prior:

I was in fact a storehouseman in the Royal William Victualling Yard Plymouth during the 1950’s and 1960’s and at one time I was in charge of the receipt of strong rum and the subsequent blending and revatting of this before issue to the Royal Navy. I still have in fact my handwritten calculations of the first vatting I did, detailing the amounts and percentages of each variety of rum required.

My eyes went wide as I read it. Could Arthur really be sitting on the recipe I’d spent years hunting? I quickly emailed him and tried to keep my hopes in check as I awaited his reply.

Our initial emails soon led to a phone call. Early in the call, Arthur began reading from his handwritten calculations. I knew I’d found my grail when he read off, “17 casks Demerara P.S.” and “2 casks Demerara C.S.” (P.S. and C.S. referring to pot still and column still, respectively.)

When our interview concluded, I asked Arthur to send me picstures of the pages. What arrived was 10 pages of notes, nine handwritten on yellow paper. My jaw dropped; within those pages were other details I’d never imagined. They didn’t contain the specific marks used, as the navy didn’t label their casks with marks. But when combined with other information I’d found, there was enough detail to make a very strong guess about which rums were used.

Given the importance of these documents, I asked Arthur to have them professionally scanned. A portion of the scans is included here. To be clear, Arthur’s notes represent just one moment in Royal Navy’s 200+ year history. Nonetheless, they are the most detailed account of a Royal Navy rum recipe ever publicly shared.

More of the scans, along with further details about the exact source rums and my interview with Arthur Roberts, can be found in The Rum Never Sets book.

Excerpts from Arthur Roberts Interview — The Rum Never Sets

MP: Which victualling yard did you work in?

AR: Technically, the Royal William Victualling Yard in Plymouth. The Royal William Victualling Yard was a big granite yard, dockside in Plymouth. How­ever, the rum store was at a sub-depot at Wrangaton. [Note: Wrangaton is about 30 km east of the main victualling yard.]

The main depot stores in Plymouth were becoming unfit for modern use; the forklifts couldn’t go on the upper floors because they were wooden. They were gradually moving some stores out to purpose-built outlying depots.

MP: How did the rum arrive at the vatting facility?

AR: We had a supply of rum from the bonded warehouse, and it was brought to us by the appropriate customs officials. When we received strong rum, they would wheel in the barrels, which were marked either Demerara, Trinidad, or Barbados.

When I started in the store, I thought, “This is taking ages,” getting the pi­pette to fill and filling the measure jar. As a young brash boy, I thought, “We’ll siphon it out.” I got a bit of plastic piping and put it in the barrel and took a nice big suck to start the siphon off. You can guess what happened. I took a big mouthful of 130, 140 proof rum. I got caught and spluttered, and every­body fell about laughing. It was my first experience of strong rum. I never did that again!

MP: What information were you given about the rum in the cask received from customs? Did you know what was in each cask beyond just where it came from?

AR: Just the country.

MP: Did the Royal Navy have an official document with the recipe that was distributed to each victualling yard?

AR: I can’t recall seeing anything like that in a manual.

MP: Walk me through the steps of a single vatting.

AR: In the store, we had racks of the different rums from Demerara and Trinidad to Barbados, Natal, and Australia. They were kept separate in different parts of the store.

When we vatted, we first needed seventeen barrels of Demerara rum. So, we wheeled out seventeen barrels, tipped them in the vat. Then the barrels of Trinidad rum; wheel them out, tip them in the vat. Two barrels of Barbados rum; wheel them out, tip them in the vat. There was also a percentage of Natal and Australian, which we had to calculate—it was a small amount.

We had to get the strengths and number of liquid gallons, then work out how much water was required to bring the vat down to navy issuing strength, which was 95.5 [proof] in ten-gallon barrels.

MP: Were the one-gallon packing samples the same as flagons?

AR: Yes. They were earthenware jars, which were encased in wickerwork. We didn’t do many one-gallon jars because I think they only went to submarines. I think the kilderkins would’ve gone to a bigger class of ship in order to get them down the gangways and the stairwells and everything into their storage departments. The jars were filled at a slightly different strength than the barrels. They were normally sealed with the red sealing wax and a stamp put on it—RWY, Royal William Yard.

What About Charles Tobias and Pusser’s Rum?

Some of you may recall that in the late 1970s, the Royal Navy gave Charles Tobias the recipe so that he could make and sell Pusser’s rum. Charles lived for nearly 50 years afterwards, and I was fortunate to interview him in 2020. I did get a few tidbits from him — Port Mourant and two Caronis were in the recipe, but he didn’t volunteer everything, nor how much of each. While the navy’s recipe might still be found in Pusser’s company records, I don’t expect it ever to see the light of day. And with Tobias’ recent passing, I can no longer revisit the topic with him.

A Note for the Coming 2025 Holiday Season

Sharing stories like the above is one of the joys of my career as an independent writer, publisher, and rum historian. Research like this takes time, money, and the occasional miracle.

I left my software development career in 2018 to learn as much as possible about rum and share what I found with fellow enthusiasts. The time I used to spend in a salaried job now goes towards writing and publishing books, as well as creating deep-dive content for this newsletter.

While Rum Wonk is free to read, there are paid subscription options: monthly, yearly, and founder levels. I’m very appreciative of everyone who’s elected to be a paid subscriber. Of course, more paid subscribers help keep my keyboard humming. Hint, hint!

If you’re looking for something with a more physical presence, Wonk Press books make great gifts! Purchasing Wonk Press books directly supports a small company, contributes directly to our bottom line, and enables us to create more books in the future!

Thanks for reading!

Today, I’m looking at Mount Gay’s recently released Silver rum. While I’ve yet to taste the official bottling rolling out to the US, I tasted an early bottling during a 2021 visit to the distillery. Its flavor impressed me, and I asked a Mount Gay representative if it was coming to the US. I was dismayed to learn it was a Barbados market exclusive, so I ferried home several bottles in my suitcase. Four years later, it’s officially hitting US shores, per the brand’s press release.

I’m told that this rum is a distinctly different blend than the now-discontinued “Eclipse Silver.” While the earlier Barbados-only release was at 43% ABV, the US-market bottle is at 40% ABV. Kudos to Mount Gay for making it available in a 1-liter format, saving consumers a bit of money while holding more rum per square inch of shelf space. Mount Gay also announced that it will be available in the UK market, albeit it at 37.5% ABV, and limited to on-premise accounts.

As for the “Silver” name, it opens up a side-quest discussion that helps frame my thoughts on this rum. Let’s jump in!

Revisiting “White” And “Silver” As Categories

When it comes to food and drink, color (or lack thereof) often tells us nothing about flavor. A recipe calling for “yellow cheese” or “red vegetables” rather than more specific ingredients would be roundly mocked. The same applies to rum. A rum’s color (or lack thereof) tells us nothing about what it tastes like. Unaged Jamaican overproof rum and unaged rhum agricole are indistinguishable in appearance but are very different beasts.

Even if we don’t focus on extreme examples like the above, the “white rum” category can confuse even people with extensive knowledge of rum and associated cocktails. Many classic cocktail recipes, including the daiquiri and mojito, call for simply “white rum.” We might consider Bacardi Superior to be a “reference rum” for these sorts of drinks. Havana Club 3, Flor de Caña 4 Extra Seco, Diplomático Planas, and others are also stylistically similar.

However, in countless mixology discussions, rums like Denizen Aged White, Banks 5, Planteray 3 Stars, Ten to One White, and Probitas are frequently cited as “better” than the above-listed rums. While many consider them more flavorful, they are not the same style of rum. Full stop.

“Classic” white rums, epitomized by Bacardi Superior, Havana Club 3, and Doorly’s 3, are single distillery light rums, usually column-distilled, and aged for several years. Afterwards, carbon filtration removes the color, rendering them “silver.” Aging-induced flavors, e.g., vanilla, dominate the relatively subtle flavors that remain.

In contrast, “modern” white rums like Banks 5 and Denizen White are more flavor-forward, multi-region rum blends made mostly or entirely from unaged rums. Most contain a secret sauce of sorts: highly flavorful (“high ester”) pot still Jamaican rum. Intense Jamaican rum has long been used like flavor extract in rum blends, punching up lighter and less expensive rums.

Consider the following rums:

• Planteray 3 Stars

• Banks 5 Island

• Denizen Aged White

• Probitas /Veritas

• Ten to One White

All are “white” multi-region blends with a noticeable Jamaican flavor note. They work well in tropical drinks but are objectively different than classic white rum in style and flavor. Classic white rums rely on aging-induced flavors, while modern multi-region whites favor fermentation flavors, e.g., “funk.”

Where does Mount Gay’s Silver Fit In?

Having teased apart most white rums into “lightly aged and filtered” or the “multi-region blend with Jamaican funk” varieties, where might we place Mount Gay Silver in the mix?

The brand’s press release is insightful:

It is a blend of pot and columns still rums…. While the column still component of the blend is unaged, the pot still portion is aged for two years in ex-American Whiskey casks. The secret to the crystal-clear liquid is double filtration, one of which consists in a filtration through charcoal, which removes the color…

Mount Gay Silver is clearly not a classic Spanish heritage-style white rum, ala Havana Club 3. Every drop of a classic white rum like Havana Club 3 is aged; the ‘3’ is a minimum age statement. Contrast that with the unaged column still rum which is likely the primary component of Mount Gay Silver. The blend is aiming for something different than the aging-forward flavors of classic Spanish heritage white rums.

On the other hand, without Jamaican rum hogo in the fray, Mount Gay’s silver is outside the realm of modern multi-region white rums. Instead, it replaces the usual Jamaican component with Barbadian pot still rum, aged just long enough to round off some rough edges without sacrificing fermentation flavors. Barbados is famous for its pot and column still blends which are decidedly “rummy” without veering towards any extremes.

Mount Gay Silver is well-within this Barbados tradition. Its flavor intensity lies somewhere between the Spanish heritage whites and the heavier multi-region blends. Replacing the boisterous Jamaican tang with Mount Gay’s refined pot still profile creates something distinctive, consciously trading a bit of flavor intensity for something more refined and classically Bajan.