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.

Some recent sad news in the rum world to report today. Charles Tobias, creator and founder of Pusser’s Rum, passed away on Oct. 14^th, 2025, at the age of 91. His passing is particularly meaningful to me as a result of my extensive research into the history of Royal Navy rum, as well as a small personal connection to Charles.

By all accounts, Charles lived a multidimensional life. Born in Canada in 1934, he attended the University of Southern California, earning degrees in Aeronautical and Mechanical Engineering. He subsequently joined the US Marine Corps and flew missions in Vietnam and Laos. He was shot down, escaped, and returned to civilian life to start a tech company in Santa Monica, California. By his own account, he indulged in extravagant living during this phase—a 37-room mansion, multiple high-end cars, and a 57-foot yacht.

Charles later sold all these things and set sail on his boat, spending the next five years at sea —an adventure documented in The Way of the Wind, a film co-starring a chimpanzee and a cheetah. A mechanical failure while sailing near Gibraltar circa 1977 led to his introduction to the Royal Navy, who, in turn, introduced Charles to their rum. The experience inspired him to create a commercial version of the Royal Navy’s rum, utilizing a recipe provided by the Royal Navy. In 1979, Charles launched the Pusser’s brand, which, as part of the recipe agreement, contributes money to the Royal Navy Sailors Fund. Pusser’s later expanded into nautical-themed clothing and restaurants.

Charles eventually sold Pusser’s rum brand but retained Pusser’s other business interests until 2021, when he sold them as well. Pusser’s famously trademarked the Painkiller/Pusser’s Painkiller® name and vigorously enforced it, causing some controversy in hospitality circles.

My connection to Charles Tobias is via Michael Fogg, the person that Planteray’s Mr. Fogg Navy Style rum pays homage to. Michael was a friend who provided invaluable insights into the history of Royal Navy rum while I was researching The Rum Never Sets book.

When Charles approached the Royal Navy to obtain a list of the rums the navy used, they eventually gave him the recipe but also suggested that Charles contact ED&F Man in case they had additional information. ED&F Man is an old-line British company that supplied rum to the Royal Navy for about a century, until the daily ration ended in 1970.

When Charles rang up ED&F Man’s number in 1977, he was connected to Michael Fogg. While Michael was never involved in Man’s rum sales to the Royal Navy, he and Charles struck up a friendship that led to Michael leaving ED&F Man and becoming the Pusser’s brand manager prior to its 1979 launch. Michael worked for Pusser’s for decades thereafter.

When I started researching Royal Navy rum history in 2018, Gary Rogalski, Pusser’s CEO, put me in contact with Michael. Michael seemed a bit suspicious of me at first, but we soon became pen pals across the Atlantic, trading tidbits about the Royal Navy’s rum history and traditions. Michael and I eventually met in person in late 2019, which I wrote about after his 2020 passing.

Michael frequently mentioned Charles in our conversations, but I was completely caught off guard when I saw a voicemail from an unknown number — “Hey Matt! This is Charles Tobias from Pusser’s….”

Charles admitted that he’d asked Michael to “check me out” when we met, and report back to him. My call with Charles was a rollicking, wide-ranging conversation. I was the proverbial kid in a candy store, asking deep, obscure questions, a few of which I’m sure Charles had never been asked before. At one point, Charles alluded to the specific rums in the Royal Navy’s blend. I had a good idea of what they were by that point, but Charles wouldn’t confirm or deny my guess. However, he generously allowed me to record and later publish parts of our conversation as a two-part interview — after removing some of the more sensitive material. Even so, they’re quite fascinating reads:

• https://cocktailwonk.com/2020/07/charles-tobias-part-one.html

• https://cocktailwonk.com/2020/07/charles-tobias-part-two.html

Charles and I communicated sporadically over the next several years. Fast forward to 2025, when I was making the final additions to The Rum Never Sets. One addition was an interview with Arthur Roberts, who blended rum for the Royal Navy in 1963, following a recipe he’d written down and miraculously still possessed 60+ years later. Every historian has their list of holy-grail discoveries. The exact Royal Navy rum recipe, to the gallon and specific marks, had unexpectedly dropped in my lap.

It occurred to me that this recipe would be wonderful to share with Charles, the only other living person I know who has the exact recipe. I was eager to compare Arthur Roberts’ 1963 account with what the Royal Navy provided to Charles in 1977. Unfortunately, a very slow-moving game of phone tag ensued, and I was remiss at times for not giving higher priority to reconnecting with Charles. So, my heart dropped when one of Charles’ friends emailed me a few days ago, informing me that Charles had passed. I was saddened, not just for Charles and his family, but also for missing the opportunity to shed more light on a question of historical significance.

Charles Tobias’ rum legacy is more than creating one of the best-known and popular rum brands of the past half-century. There were many commercial “navy rums” before Pusser’s, but it was Charles who convinced the Royal Navy to share its recipe. Charles was an important bridge between Royal Navy rum traditions and today’s interest in navy-style rums. In hiring Michael Fogg, Charles, without knowing so at the time, helped preserve countless Royal Navy rum stories and important historic records. Finally, Charles’ version and promotion of the Painkiller recipe made it one of the most iconic tropical drinks, served in bars around the globe.

My conversations with Charles are among my most meaningful rum memories. Fair winds and following seas, Mr. Tobias!

On October 28^th, Hurricane Melissa crossed over Jamaica as a Category 5 storm, Jamaica’s largest recorded hurricane ever. News of how Jamaica’s people and infrastructure fared is still trickling in as I write this.

News organizations will focus on the broader issues, but as someone familiar with Jamaica’s rum makers, I’ll share some thoughts on how Melissa might affect the country’s rum industry. Questions about how Jamaica’s six distilleries fared are naturally top of mind. Still, when it comes to resuming rum making, there’s much more to consider beyond any immediate damage.

Distillery Damage

Very early reporting from people on the ground in Jamaica suggests the three easternmost distilleries — Clarendon, New Yarmouth, and Worthy Park suffered relatively minor damage. It’s the three westward distilleries — Long Pond, Hampden, and Appleton — that less is known about thus far. A more comprehensive assessment will likely take several more days, once workers can get to these remote distilleries, fully assess the situation, and report back.

Melissa’s eye crossed northward over Jamaica’s western parishes, passing very close—if not directly over—Hampden Estate. Appleton and Long Pond were a relatively short distance to the east of Melissa’s track. The fermentation and distillation areas of all three distilleries are a mix of old stone/masonry structures alongside others with corrugated metal siding and roofing, easily torn away by hurricane-force winds.

Hampden and Long Pond are Jamaica’s last remaining heritage high-ester rum distilleries, while Appleton is Jamaica’s best-known and oldest rum distillery. The loss of any of them would be a huge blow to Jamaica’s rum legacy. I do know that Long Pond’s column still structure was toppled. However, the Blair column still within the structure hasn’t been operational since 2009.

Jamaica’s two largest distilleries, New Yarmouth and Clarendon, are about 90 km from Mellissa’s closest passage. Their column still areas are relatively modern, having been built or overhauled within the last 20 years. Both were designed to withstand very high winds. Both distilleries also have older structures housing their pot stills and associated fermenters. These structures face a higher risk from high winds. However, early reports suggest these structures at New Yarmouth and Clarendon weren’t seriously damaged.

Worthy Park was the furthest distillery from Melissa’s path and is a relatively modern structure, built in 2005. Worthy Park posted a statement,

In the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa, our thoughts are with everybody affected by this devastating storm. We are relieved to share that Worthy Park Estate sustained no significant structural damage and our team is safe.

While we begin clean-up at the Estate, our attention extends across the island as we support those in the hardest-hit communities and work together toward recovery.

Even so, geography poses a different kind of challenge. Worthy Park is in a valley, usually accessed via a steep, twisting mountain road prone to mudslides. While this road is currently closed, employees can use alternate routes.

The Human Factor

While distillery and supply chain damage are relatively straightforward to assess, the hurricane’s impact on the distillery staff is even more important. Workers may have been injured, lost their housing, or need to focus on tending to their families. Even if a distillery’s equipment can resume operations, it may take longer for the staff to be ready to return to work.

Also, when disaster strikes, distilleries usually first focus on helping their communities. We saw this during COVID-19, when distilleries around the world turned their production to making alcohol-based sanitizer. And when Puerto Rico was hit with a hurricane several years ago, distilleries like Bacardi used their stills to purify water for the community.

Molasses Supply Chain

In times past, Caribbean rum makers solely used molasses from their island’s sugar mills. However, Jamaica’s sugarcane industry has been in steep economic decline for decades. Less sugarcane is planted, and most of Jamaica’s sugar factories have closed. Jamaica’s rum industry is now heavily dependent on imported molasses to augment what’s made locally.

Worthy Park has been the notable exception, using only molasses from its on-site sugar mill—but hurricanes often flatten sugarcane fields. Jamaica’s sugarcane harvest season is starting soon, and very little of this year’s sugarcane crop may be available. And even if some of the cane survived and could be harvested, Worthy Park’s sugar factory would have to be operational.

Jamaica’s distilleries typically hold a reserve of molasses, typically enough for a few months. However, if the molasses terminals where tanker ships unload imported molasses were heavily damaged, the distilleries could exhaust their molasses supply. It’s unknown how much of a reserve each distillery had on hand when Melissa struck.

Aging Stock

Wray & Nephew (New Yarmouth, Appleton) holds Jamaica’s largest stock of casked rum and distributes those casks in warehouses around the island. This helps mitigate the risk of catastrophic loss at any single warehouse.

National Rums of Jamaica (Clarendon and Long Pond) have all their aging stock at the former Innswood distillery, well to the east of Melissa’s track. Hampden and Worthy Park presumably store all, or nearly all, of their casks at the distillery.

Bouncing Back

If a distillery suffers extensive damage, its owners must decide whether it’s financially viable to repair or rebuild. Long Pond faced such a moment in 2018 when a fire destroyed the fermentation hall and rum storage tanks.

Appleton and New Yarmouth are owned by Grupo Campari, a large multinational spirits producer with relatively deep financial pockets.

Long Pond and Clarendon have three owners:

• Sugar Company of Jamaica, i.e., Jamaica’s government

• Demerara Distillers Ltd

• West Indies Rum Distillery (owned by Maison Ferrand / Planteray Rum)

Any large-scale repair or rebuilding would have to be collectively agreed upon by all the owners.

Hampden and Worthy Park are owned by Jamaican families.

Jamaican Rum Availability

If you’re wondering whether to rush out and buy all the Jamaican rum you can lay your hands on, the answer is, “It depends.”

Unaged expressions like Hampden’s Rum Fire are the most likely to disappear from store shelves in the near term. They can move quickly from distillation to bottling and to market, often within just a few weeks or months. If a distillery can’t distill, it will disrupt the pipelines of these rums in short order. This happened recently with Wray & Nephew White Overproof, when New Yarmouth ran into issues with dunder disposal, forcing it to sharply reduce distillation operations.

The aged Jamaican rum supply is less likely to be immediately impacted, as each distillery has aging stock of various durations. A period of non-production can be smoothed out in future years via changes to blends and so forth.

In terms of getting rum to market, Appleton and other JWN products are bottled at the company’s Kingston facility, which I’m told is susceptible to flooding. However, Appleton and other JWN can also be bottled at Campari’s Canadian facility.

It’s worth noting that blenders like E&A Scheer hold a fair amount of bulk Jamaican rum. Such blenders regularly buy from certain Jamaican distilleries for subsequent resale to brands like Smith & Cross, Banks, Denizen, and Doctor Bird. If Scheer’s Jamaican rum supply dwindles, those brands could face higher prices.

Likewise, if a distillery’s ability to make rum diminishes, they’re likely to hold on to that rum for their house brands, rather than sell it in bulk. That could further squeeze private-label and independent-bottler brands.

Fortunately, at least two of the distilleries known to sell bulk rum to Scheer and others appear to be ready to start distilling soon, assuming other hurdles like molasses supply don’t pop up.

Wrap Up

To be clear, I’m not reporting on the specific damage and issues each distillery will face in the coming months—it’s way too early to know, and future reporting will bring these details to light. Instead, consider the above as background about what might play out, along with potential ramifications. As with many of you, Jamaican rum and its people are very dear to me, and I anxiously await further news while hoping for the best.

Within the rum world, Puerto Rico’s Ron del Barrilito is among today’s most misunderstood or polarizing rums, depending on your perspective. While the brand has many fans, including me, the same three questions pop up whenever it’s discussed in enthusiast circles:

• Is it flavored rum filled with additives?

• Is the brand legitimate if they don’t distill it?

• Where does the distillate come from?

Here, I’m adding a fourth question: Is it Puerto Rico’s oldest rum distillery, as many social media posts and news stories claim?

I’ll address each of them below, then wrap up with an excerpt from Modern Caribbean Rum regarding the company’s production operations.

Before we begin, here are the players:

• Ron del Barrilito – the rum brand.

• Hacienda Santa Ana – The Puerto Rican estate where Ron del Barrilito is produced.

• Ron Hacienda Santa Ana – Another brand made at Hacienda Santa Ana.

• Edmundo B. Fernández – The parent company of the rum brands and estate.

Additives in Spirits – A Primer

Virtually all distilled spirits have a long history of “enhancing” their flavor via maceration with fruits and spices and the addition of sweet wines and tinctures. There are hundreds of old books with recipes for “improving” whiskey and brandy:

Rum is no exception. In his 1937 paper, Foreign and Domestic Rum, US Government agent Peter Valaer writes about Barbados rum:

…it consists of mixtures of molasses spirit which were originally distilled at approximately 185° to 190° proof and to which were added ingredients to produce desired types of flavors. The molasses spirits are usually distilled with lime and soda, often in the presence of vegetable roots, coconut shells, and other substances. … There is a tendency to remove as much as possible of the original character due to fermentation of cane products and substitute a new character with added ingredients. … a formula of well-known brands consists of a mixture of distilled molasses spirit varying in proof from 145° to 190°, sherry, Madeira or other wines, often spirits of niter, bitter almonds, and raisins.

Clearly, today’s Barbados rum-making is a far cry from what Valaer described, but the passage highlights that additives in rum are not a modern phenomenon, nor are they limited to Spanish heritage producers.

Certain spirits, including bourbon and Scotch whisky, eventually adopted regulations forbidding the addition of anything other than caramel for coloring. Other spirits haven’t gone that route yet. While many rum producers make rums devoid of additives, the practice of using wines and macerations remains, particularly in the Spanish heritage domain. Producers disclosing all their additives is the ideal scenario, but within the rum category as a whole, not all additives are equally bad. Think “shades of gray,” not black or white. Caramel coloring is an additive, after all.

In the end, what ultimately matters is whether a given rum adheres to the regulations where it’s made and sold. If a spirit complies with all the rules to be called rum, it’s legally rum, even if not to our preferences. I prefer additive-free rums myself, but I also enjoy many rums where I’m fully aware that things like sweet wines are part of the flavor profile.

Barrilito’s Additives

In my interactions with Barrilito, they’ve been upfront about their process. To make Barrilito, the company starts with a very light cane spirit (~94% ABV), which they purchase.

Less than 2.5 percent of that distillate is then macerated with fruits and spices. The exact list is naturally a secret. Afterwards, the macerated rum is blended with the remaining 98% before aging.

Here’s the key point: Per US TTB regulations, rum can contain up to 2.5 percent by volume of “harmless coloring, flavoring, or blending materials.” Barrilito’s macerated rum fits this description, so per TTB’s rules, it’s legally rum, not flavored rum, spiced rum, or a spirit drink.

While this maceration may not be everyone’s cup of tea, many people are quite enthusiastic about it, and the brand has built a loyal fan base. From the brand’s perspective, they might say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Source Rum

Just as there’s a long history of additives in distilled spirits, so are producers that don’t distill. Such producers purchase unaged distillate, which they then age and/or blend before selling it under their brand name. In the whiskey world, such brands are referred to as Non-Distilling Producers (NDPs). For instance, Whistle Pig was an NDP until they started distilling in 2015.

In early twentieth-century Barbados, brands like Cockspur, Doorly’s, Alleyne Arthur, and R.L. Seale purchased unaged rum from the West Indies Rum Refinery, now known as the West Indies Rum Distillery. A few well-known rum NDPs today include Bermúdez and Matusalem (Dominican Republic), La Hechicera (Colombia), Karukera (Guadeloupe), and Trigo (Puerto Rico).

It’s often (incorrectly) assumed that Hacienda Santa Ana buys its unaged distillate from its island neighbor, Bacardi. While this may have been true in the past, it’s doesn’t appear to be the case today.

How do I know? Puerto Rico is a US territory, and publicly available US import data show Edmundo B. Fernández (Barrilito’s parent company) importing a large amount of rum from the Dominican Republic, as well as lesser amounts from Guatemala. Some of the Dominican Republic rum came from Alcoholes Finos Domincanos, while much more came from a company called Flexitank. However, Flexitank may be just an intermediary between the actual distiller and Edmundo B. Fernández. The Guatemalan rum came from Mag Alcoholes SA, a large Guatemalan agro-industrial producer. (See Modern Caribbean Rum for details on both these distilleries.)

To finalize one last detail regarding Bacardi, since 2017, Edmundo B. Fernández, Inc. has been owned by a Puerto Rican investor group led by Joaquín Bacardí III. Joaquín was previously the CEO of one of the Bacardi Corporation’s divisions. However, the Bacardi corporation and Edmundo B. Fernández, Inc. appear to be completely separate companies.

Is Ron del Barrilito Puerto Rico’s oldest rum distillery?

Many news stories and social media posts say that Ron del Barrilito is Puerto Rico’s oldest rum distillery, dating back to 1880 or 1871, depending on when you start counting. This predates Bacardi’s arrival in Puerto Rico in 1936.

However, Puerto Rico enacted local Prohibition in 1917, and the US as a whole in 1920. Hacienda Santa Ana didn’t distill during Prohibition and didn’t resume production when Prohibition ended in 1934. Thus, the company hasn’t distilled for over a century.

Now, you might ask, “What exactly constitutes a distillery?” Must distillation actually occur there? Or is just some aspect of rum production sufficient?

It doesn’t really matter here.

Destilería Serrallés, home of Don Q rum, was established in Puerto Rico in 1865. And unlike Hacienda Santa Ana, it resumed rum distillation after Prohibition ended. Thus, I contend it holds the title of Puerto Rico’s oldest rum distillery.

Ron del Barrilito may have specific criteria for declaring itself the oldest, but if so, I’m not aware of what they are.

With all four topics addressed, I’ll wrap up with a relevant excerpt from Modern Caribbean Rum’s Puerto Rico chapter.

Modern Caribbean Rum Chapter Excerpt

When US Prohibition ended, Barrilito quickly registered its trademark and label with the US Patent Office and returned to rum making. However, distillation was no longer part of the operation. Instead, they worked with a distillery to recreate the flavor profile of the rum Barrilito once distilled.

The Fernández family continued to own Santa Ana and Barrilito for another seven decades while its fortunes waxed and waned. The two remaining Fernández family members, the brothers Manuel and Fernando, had no successors. After a year and a half of discussions with former Bacardi CEO Joaquin Bacardi III, the brothers entrusted Joaquin with Barrilito’s legacy. It was Juan’s commitment to continue the Fernández tradition and respect their production processes that sealed the deal.

Joaquin immediately made critical investments to expand operations and grow the Barrilito brand. An influx of USD 12 million was allocated for improvements, including a new visitor’s center, three new 25,000-gallon spirit tanks, 28,000 additional sherry butts from Spain, and a new warehouse to hold all those new casks.

Another element of the revamp was adding new Four Stars and Five Stars expressions to the company’s longstanding Two Stars and Three Stars lineup. Another addition is a 138-proof rum known as Ron Hacienda Santa Ana, which follows an abbreviated version of the Barrilito Two Stars process.

Hacienda Santa Ana Operations

Rum making at Hacienda Santa Ana is surprisingly compact. All essential operations, including aging, fit within a large square building with a courtyard recessed into one side.

Over the years, there has been some misunderstanding about Barrilito’s rum production process. These days, Barrilito is very transparent about how it produces rum, including the process of macerating small amounts of rum with fruit. While this draws gasps of “adulteration” from certain quarters, maceration has a long tradition in spirits making.

The keys to Barrilito’s flavor profile are twofold:

• Macerating a small percentage of each bottle’s rum with fruit

• Aging in ex-sherry casks

Barrilito purchases a custom-made light rum at between 94 and 94.5 percent ABV. While it’s not a heavy aguardiente, it’s in line with the light distillate that other Spanish heritage producers use in their blends.

Less than 2.5 percent of the rum Barrilito purchases un­dergoes maceration. Before maceration, the rum is diluted to around 65 percent ABV and placed into wooden tanks. Dried fruits and spices join the rum in the tank and macerate for around six months. However, this infused liquid is just one aspect of Barrilito’s flavor profile.

A closely guarded company secret is the exact set of fruits, spices, and nuts. Only two people know the exact ingredients. The first is Manual Fernández, Barrilito’s prior master blender and grandson of Pedro Fernández. The other is the current master blender, Cuban-born Luis Planas. Before coming to Barrilito, Planas was Bacardi’s Process Director and Global Rum Master Blender.

When it comes time to blend rum for aging, a large tank is filled with unaged, unmacerated rum diluted to fifty percent ABV. The water Barrilito uses for diluting rum before aging is filtered rainwater collected on the Hacienda Santa Ana grounds. A bit of the macerated rum then joins the unmacerated rum. The result is just a bit over fifty percent ABV and has less than 2.5 percent macerated rum, within US regula­tions for “blending materials.”

The exclusive use of ex–oloroso sherry butts for aging is an­other way Barrilito differs from mainstream rum producers. Each butt holds five hundred liters, about 250 percent of a bourbon barrel’s capacity. While Barrilito uses ex-sherry butts, they are not used as part of a solera.

A quick update today regarding a recent (September 2025) court ruling regarding Jamaica’s rum geographical indication process. To bring you up to speed quickly, in late 2024, JIPO (Jamaica’s Intellectual Property Office) updated the original 2016 GI on several fronts. Here’s an overview of the 2024 changes:

The key point of contention in what follows is the revised GI wording, which makes it clear that aging must occur in Jamaica. Jamaica’s Spirits Pool and J. Wray & Nephew, the Spirit Pool’s largest shareholder, advocated for this clarification.

National Rum of Jamaica, aka NRJ, opposed this modification, citing that Jamaican rum has a long history of overseas aging and that NRJ continues to sell a substantial amount of bulk rum to clients which age the rum overseas. (As a historical aside, much of the Jamaican rum that aged overseas was in the UK, e.g., “London Dock Rum.”)

After JIPO’s 2024 GI revision, NRJ appealed to the commercial division of Jamaica’s Supreme Court. The core of NRJ’s appeal is that the revised GI requirement substantially hinders the company’s ability to sell bulk rum to certain clients, thus creating financial harm for the company.

In this appeal, NRJ is the claimant. The four defendants are:

• Registrar Of Industrial Property

• Shantal English (JIPO Hearing Officer)

• Spirits Pool Association Limited

• J. Wray & Nephew Limited

What’s New

On September 19^th, 2025, the judge overseeing the appeal issued a ruling. Here’s my summary of the lengthy and legalese-laden ruling found on Jamaica’s Supreme Court website:

• An interim declaration rendering JIPO’s 2024 GI changes null and void, pending a full hearing of all points under contention.

• Until the hearing is completed, Jamaica’s Spirits Pool must not accept or process any applications for Jamaica Rum GI certification under the revised requirements of the 2024 GI updates. [I’m not a lawyer, but this is my understanding of the ruling’s intent.]

• Likewise, until the hearing is completed, the Defendants are prohibited from taking any action to implement or enforce the 2024 GI revisions, including informing the public, the European Commission, EU countries, or any other government or international body that the 2024 GI revisions are valid or in effect.

As an aside for those not well versed in Jamaica’s rum industry, while this is technically a dispute between Jamaican entities, there is an international dimension to the proceedings. J. Wray & Nephew is owned by the Italian company, Gruppo Campari. National Rums of Jamaica has three owners, each with a one-third stake:

• Jamaica’s government, by way of the Sugar Company of Jamaica

• Guyana’s Demerara Distillers Ltd.

• France’s Maison Ferrand, by way of the West Indies Rum Distillery

  Summary

The key takeaway is that an appeals court judge has put JIPO’s 2024 GI revisions on hold, pending further hearings before the court. While this ruling seems to side with NRJ’s claims, it is only a temporary pause. The key points of contention between the parties remain and will be addressed by the Commercial Court, rather than JIPO. [Again, I’m not a lawyer, but this is my understanding of the ruling.]

In a previous story, I provided some background information related to Ian Burrell’s recent widely shared post announcing that he is no longer representing Equiano Rum. The story has since picked up steam in the UK drinks trade press, with articles from Drinks International, The Drinks Business, and Harpers Wine & Spirit.

Much of the attention given to this post focuses on this portion of the post:

…it has come to light that the corresponding trademark was NEVER registered in the company’s name but was purportedly registered by a company controlled by another of our founding director & shareholder.

However, the trademark issue is just one aspect of a larger story, which I outlined in my prior piece. Since then, additional information has come out that sheds new light on the broader story.

Recap

To briefly recap where my prior story left off, per public company filings by Equiano Limited, the directors of Equiano Limited placed the company into administration in May of 2025 due to insolvency issues. During administration, an independent outside firm takes control of the company to protect it from creditors while also seeking the best outcome through restructuring, selling assets, or orderly winding-down. In this case, the creditors being protected include The Rum Experience Company Limited, which Burrell owns.

The three Equiano Limited directors who placed the company into administration were:

• Ian Burrel

• Aaisha Dadral

• Amanda Kakembo

Each held approximately 1/6th of Equiano’s shares. However, a fourth shareholder, Oliver Bartlam, also owned 1/6^th of the company’s shares. Bartlam appears at the end of my earlier article:

…in July 2025, Oliver Bartlam, one of the founders and a large shareholder of Equiano, as well as one of Equiano’s former directors, registered a new company in the UK, Equiano Global Ltd.

I found this curious but couldn’t find any more information about this new company, other than its ownership by Bartlam. (Bartlan resigned as a director of Equiano Limited in 2022.)

Rebuttal

The day after my first Equiano article appeared, The Drinks Business published “Equiano responds: ‘Ian was a director throughout, he knew the IP ownership position.” This article doesn’t mention Bartlam by name, but in it, an unnamed Equiano Global Limited spokesperson is quoted:

In May this year, the directors of Equiano Ltd (Ian Burrell, Amanda Kakembo and Aaisha Dadral) initiated an administration process due to a significant funding gap. During this process, it became apparent that the company did not own all intellectual property and trademark rights. The IP had in fact been secured by the company’s design agency, something that all directors, including Ian, were aware of well before administration.

Following this, Ian assembled a syndicate of new investors that sought to negotiate and secure the business and assets of Equiano Limited whilst also attempting to purchase the IP and take full control of the brand.

The administrators [Quantuma], acting independently and in the best interests of creditors, ultimately rejected their proposal to purchase the assets of Equiano Limited and instead accepted an offer from Equiano Global Limited, a company backed by existing shareholders.

In simpler terms, the Equiano Global Limited spokesperson said that two of Equiano Limited’s large shareholders (Burrell and Bartlam) made competing proposals to the administration company (Quantuma) to purchase the company’s assets. Quantuma selected Bartlam’s proposal over Burrell’s investor syndicate.

If this is true, then Equiano Global Limited may now, or shortly, own the Equiano brand and its associated assets. Naturally, there may be more twists in the story still to come.

Be that as it may, the public face of the brand (Burrell) is no longer on board, and the brand’s primary rum supplier has said on social media that it won’t supply more rum to the brand. Likewise, numerous rum bars and rum industry personalities have shared that they will no longer support the brand. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Recently (early September 2025) Ian Burrell shared widely on social media that he would no longer be representing Equiano, a rum brand he was a director of and co-founded. His post included the following passage:

While I am a founder and shareholder of EQUIANO LIMITED, it has come to light that the corresponding trademark was NEVER registered in the company’s name but was purportedly registered by a company controlled by another of our founding director & shareholder.

Therefore, I can no longer continue to represent the Equiano Rum brand and I have retained counsel in the matter.

Equiano is very well-known in rum enthusiast circles, and I’m sure like many others, I was surprised by this and wanted to know more. Having previously used trademark databases for stories like Plantation Rum Becomes Planteray Rum, I learned that Equiano was trademarked in 2020 by Crave Communications, which is owned by Aaisa Dadral, another of Equiano’s co-founders and directors.

During my research, I found significantly more information in the public record regarding the operations of Equiano Limited, the brand’s owner. Almost every new spirit brand faces challenges on many fronts in its early years, and Equiano was no exception. What follows is instructive to those pondering launching their own brand or investing in an existing brand.

To summarize, despite its popularity and numerous awards, Equiano Limited may have operated at loss each year since its 2019 inception. In 2025 the company went into “administration.” A June 2025 publicly available filing with the UK government (AM03 Notice of Administrator’s Proposals) notes:

In the absence of additional funding and having reviewed the projected cash flow, the directors resolved to place the Company into Administration on 13 May 2025.

What this means is that the courts, creditors, or directors of the company appointed an external administrator to run the company. The administrator’s role is to run the company while protecting it from legal action by creditors, as well as attempting to rescue it as a going concern. (For U.S. readers, the closest thing to administration is Chapter 11 bankruptcy.)

It’s also worth noting that Equiano launched shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic, creating additional headwinds for the young company.

Equiano’s Early Days

The UK government filing provides a summary of the company’s history. In what follows, I’ll quote key passages that tell the story, starting with:

The Company (initially, Blue Acorn Limited) was incorporated on 6 March 2019. The Company’s initial funding came from the founding shareholders, three of whom hold a majority shareholding and became directors of the Company.

Further investment followed in April 2019, facilitating creation of the product and an initial production run.

A further round of seed funding totalling approximately £900,000 was secured in late 2019 / early 2020. Further funding was secured from several global rum partners, adding credibility to the business. This funding was utilised to produce inventory and launch the business.

From the public incorporation documents, two of the initial directors and largest initial shareholders were:

• Ian Burrell

• Oliver Bartlam

Funding Rounds

The AM03 filing with the UK government continues:

The Company secured further investment through a strategic lead investor who completed a Series A investment of £1.5m across 2021-2022. They expressed an intention to take all required future investment rounds moving forward and funding was received in sporadic tranches. However, given the Company’s size and that cash outflows at that time were relatively low, the sporadic funding was not detrimental to the business.

Given the amount (£1.5m) and timing, the “lead investor” could be Uncle Nearest Investment Fund, the investment arm of Uncle Nearest whiskey.

Some of you may recall that Uncle Nearest has been in the news recently and is facing a lawsuit after allegedly defaulting on over $100 million in loans.

Financial Challenges.

The AM03 UK government filing continues:

The lead investor subsequently committed a further £2.7m to the business in 2022, taking the full Series B round of investment. Payments again came in sporadically across 2023. By this stage, the Company was operating in multiple countries and appeared to be gaining traction in the market. However, the sporadic nature of continued investment was by now becoming disruptive to operations and growth.

Further investment of approximately £600,000 had been anticipated to arrive in the summer of 2023 but this did not materialise, and the business was thereafter unable to secure further investment .… without additional funds, the business was unable to purchase new stock, grow or support existing markets.

In order to preserve cashflow and protect creditors, in summer 2024 the Company terminated contracts with several sales consultants in the USA and in September 2024 it ceased working with its PR and social media agencies. In November 2024, the Company terminated contracts with the remaining consultants and made two of its three full time members of staff in the UK redundant. At this stage, the Company’s directors began taking advice regarding the Company’s solvency position and its options.

Administration

This brings us to 2025. The AM03 filing with the UK government continues:

The business continued to sell its existing stock in the early months of 2025 in order to repay debts whilst conversations with potential investors continued.

In the absence of additional funding and having reviewed the projected cash flow, the directors resolved to place the Company into Administration on 13 May 2025.

…

The Company’s directors held discussions with a number of potential investors in early 2025 as they sought to secure additional funding that would alleviate their cashflow issues …. discussions with potential investors were unsuccessful and therefore on 28 April 2025, Quantuma was formally engaged to contingency plan for a potential insolvency appointment.

On May 13^th, 2025, Quantuma Advisory Limited took control of Equiano Limited, and followed up with several actions, including:

The Joint Administrators have taken steps to market the business and assets of the Company via the issuance of a sale proposal summarising the opportunity to invest in, or acquire, the business.

The proposal was circulated to a list of 231 potentially interested parties related to the food and beverage industry and was advertised on the Quantuma LinkedIn page.

Below is an image from “Project Celeste,” shared in a June 2025 LinkedIn post by Quantuma. While not explicitly mentioning Equiano, the post describes a company remarkably similar to Equiano, stating:

Opportunity to invest in or acquire a multi award-winning* brand of premium rum with a socially conscious ethos. The brand comprises both dark and light rums appealing to a broad range of higher end consumers. The products are 100% natural with no additives, no sugar, and no spices – aimed at the rum connoisseur.

Following a successful launch in late 2019, the business secured its first investment round. Despite the pandemic, the business managed to grow revenues to £746k in 2022, which attracted subsequent investment rounds. Due to recent working capital issues the company is currently in administration.

The business currently has import and distribution partners in 20 plus countries and has established itself in 5 of the largest markets, including UK, Canada, Germany, US and Italy.

The LinkedIn post also includes unaudited financial results for the years 2021 to 2025, each with yearly operating losses between £479K and £1.3M.

Per the AM03 filing, the brand’s five largest shareholders were:

• Aaisha Dadral (Director, Brand & Marketing)

• Amanda Kakembo (Director, Commercial Director)

• Ian Burrell (Director)

• Oliver Bartlam (Co-founder and former Director)

• Uncle Nearest Investments (Uncle Nearest Whiskey)

The company’s three largest creditors were:

• The Rum Experience (Ian Burrell)

• Crave Communications (Aaisha Dadral)

• Equiano’s primary rum supplier

Regarding the Equiano trademark, the AM03 filing notes:

The Company used the ‘Equiano’ trademark as part of its day-to-day trading. This trademark was initially registered by Crave Communications Limited on 11 September 2019, a company in which one of the Company’s directors and shareholders is the sole director.

It is understood that all intellectual property rights in the registrations, including all associated goodwill, is owned exclusively by Crave Communications Limited.

Discussions are on-going in respect of the use of the intellectual property rights going forward.

Today

As of early September 2025, it’s not publicly known if Equiano Limited and the associated brand have been sold. However, in July 2025, Oliver Bartlam, one of the founders and large shareholder of Equiano, as well as one of Equiano’s former directors, registered a new company in the UK, Equiano Global Limited.

I won’t speculate here about Equiano Limited’s management or the actions of its directors. Everything I’ve included above is either excerpted from UK company filings or other publicly shared information.

Given some recent developments in Tiki rum land, I want to outline some history and perspective regarding the rum(s) to use for a classic Mai Tai. But before diving in, there are two things I need to state up front:

• Make your Mai Tai however the hell you enjoy it. Use whatever rums work best for your preferences.

• The focus here is replicating the “OG” 1944 Mai Tai. I’m deliberately not addressing the Royal Hawaiian and similar style “Pineapple” Mai Tais that arose in the 1950s. They’re different drinks.

With these caveats out of the way, many tropical drink enthusiasts strive to make an authentic, original Mai Tai as close as possible to what Trader Vic created in 1944. What follows below builds on information I’ve presented in prior articles:

• The Essential Tiki Rum Style That Disappeared

• Rhum Agricole in your Mai Tai? Let’s Talk.

• Tiki’s Missing Ingredient: “Martinique Rum” of Yore - Cocktail Wonk

• Gatekeeping the Mai Tai - Cocktail Wonk

Generation Gap — The Tiki Revival

A generation of today’s bartenders (amateur and pro) came of age studying the excellent writings of Jeff “Beachbum” Berry. In his seminal 2007 book, Sippin’ Safari, the Mai Tai recipe specifies:

• 1 oz aged Jamaican rum

• 1 oz amber Martinique rum

The recipe notes, “As served at Trader Vic’s in Havana Cuba, 1958,” a point I’ll return to later.

Now, about that Martinique rum. The same generation of bartenders who’ve read this recipe and its many derivative versions quite reasonably assumed that Martinique rum meant rhum agricole. After all, the readily available Martinique rums on store shelves are rhum agricole.

Key Point #1: Words and phrases can change meaning over time. Commercially available Martinique rum available in the 1950s was overwhelmingly molasses or cane syrup rum rather than rhum agricole. The articles listed above provide historical citations to support this assertion. And no, the commercially available molasses rums of the 1950s were not grand arôme like those used in Denizen’s Merchant’s Reserve. (It is tasty, though!)

Vic’s description of Martinique rum from his 1946 book, along with his rum list at the time, is strong evidence that the “Martinique rum” he used was not rhum agricole:

Today’s bartenders, by following the recipe literally rather than its intent, unintentionally veer astray from Vic’s original Mai Tai. I’m not pointing fingers here, as the recipe’s intent wasn’t well known until recently,

Key Point #2: While the Mai Tai is the focus here, the changed meaning of “Martinique rum” also affects many other Golden Era recipes that also used Martinique rum. Classic recipes like the Three Dots and a Dash and the Donga Punch also didn’t use rhum agricole when they were created. Do what you will with this information.

So Now What Do We Do?

Let’s now stroll down the path of what Martinique rum means in a modern context. In the absence of any commercially available Martinique molasses rum, what are some reasonable substitutes?

I’ve previously noted (here and here) that Martinique’s sister overseas departments, Guadeloupe and Réunion, make a substantial amount of molasses-based rum in the classic French style. Examples include Darboussier and Rhum DBM from Guadeloupe, as well as Savanna and Isautier from Réunion. They are flavorful, yet quite different from Jamaica’s signature rum flavor profile.

In The Essential Tiki Rum Style That Disappeared, I posited that Holmes Cay’s 3-Year Réunion Island Rhum Traditionnel was the first French-style molasses rum to be available in the US at a reasonably affordable price:

For American consumers, it may be the best currently available choice to substitute for a Martinique rum in vintage tiki recipes… That said, I can’t promise you that the Holmes Cay Rhum Traditionnel tastes exactly like the Saint-James, Rhum Charleston, and Negrita that Vic and Don used in the 1950s.

I have pestered Eric Kaye (of Holmes Cay) for a longer-aged version of this rum, along with a splash of caramel. Fingers crossed that we’ll see something like this in the US at some point.

An Alternate Take

More recently, leading Mai Tai enthusiast Kevin Crossman (The Search for the Ultimate Mai Tai) also wrote about this Holmes Cay rum:

… is it the rum you want for a second adjusted formula Mai Tai? No, no it isn’t.
…
So if you’re trying to replicate the second adjusted formula, this rum isn’t it; we suggest Worthy Park 109 as a readily available substitute that tastes like Vic described it.

However, the article later notes:

…Réunion Island Rum Traditionnel is fantastic in a Mai Tai.

In essence, Kevin asserts that Worthy Park’s 109 Jamaican rum is a better choice in a 2^nd adjusted Mai Tai than Holme’s Cay Réunion Traditionnel.

Who’s right? Well, there’s a twist, so read on.

Trader Vic Speaks

In his now-famous 1970 letter titled “Let’s Set the Record Straight on the Mai Tai,” Vic outlines the drink’s evolution from its 1944 creation, which used 2 ounces of Wray & Nephew 17-year-old rum. Vic later switched to Wray & Nephew 15, as the supplies of the 17-year had dwindled.

Even later, in the 1950s, due to the “…end of a dependable supply of the 15-year old J. Wray Nephew,” Vic changed to a blend of Jamaican rums:

• 1 oz 15-Year Wray & Nephew

• 1 oz Coruba or Red Heart

When the supply of W&N 15-Year also dwindled, it caused “… Trader Vic to make private arrangements, in the interest of high quality, to blend and bottle a Jamaican rum under his own label and control.”

Summarizing the above, Vic’s first four Mai Tai iterations used:

• Wray & Nephew 17-year

• Wray & Nephew 15-year

• Wray & Nephew 15-year and Coruba/Red Heart

• A custom Jamaican rum blend bottled for Trader Vic.

It seems clear that Vic really wanted only Jamaican rum in his Mai Tais. Only later did his “2^nd Adjusted Formula” introduce a non-Jamaican rum:

• 1 ounce Trader Vic’s Jamaican Rum (15 or 8 year old)

• 1 ounce Martinique Rum (St. James or Trader Vic’s)

Note: This jibes with the Sippin’ Safari 1958 Mai Tai from the Havana Trader Vic’s.

I know many of you spotted the St. James and thought, “Aha! That’s rhum agricole!” However, St. James produced both cane syrup and cane juice rums well into the 1980s. I’ve tasted 1950s-era St. James rum made from cane syrup. (See image and red underlined text above.) While delightful, it didn’t taste at all like rhum agricole to me.

Key Point #3: Vic’s Mai Tais solely used Jamaican rum until running out of acceptable options. I contend that the 2^nd Adjusted Formula was a necessary accommodation, rather than an improvement on his original rum iterations.

Given this, I wonder why so many people choose an interpretation of Vic’s 2^nd Adjusted Formula when there’s plenty of hardy Jamaican rums available. Why use an understudy when the star performer is available?

Sure, if you have a 1950s-era Negrita, St. James, or Rhum Charleston at your disposal, please try out the 2^nd Adjusted Formula — and invite me over! But in the absence of such rums in your bar, two ounces of a Jamaican rum (your pick) might be a better choice.

This is effectively what Kevin Crossman suggests when asserting that Worthy Park 109 works better than Holmes Cay Réunion Traditionnel in an OG Mai Tai. However, this abandons the notion of using Vic’s 2^nd Adjusted Formula. An ounce of Worthy Park 109 and an ounce of some other Jamaican rum gives you …. two ounces of Jamaican rum! Just like Vic used in the first place!

As for me, I often use an ounce each of Smith & Cross and Planteray Xaymaca. It incorporates rum from most of Jamaica’s distilleries, and the blend is a perfect 50% ABV.

Hopefully, the above has provided some useful historical context and given you a framework for your own rum choices when making Tiki’s most beloved recipe.

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Today I’m sharing the first of several forthcoming chapter excerpts from my latest book, The Rum Never Sets: 300 Years of Royal Navy and London Dock Rum, co-written with Alexandre Gabriel. While much of the attention given to this book focuses on the Royal Navy’s rum, the book also dives deep into the London Dock rum and the West India Docks. Essentially, they were the consumer side of the British rum trade in the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

Without the infrastructure of the West India Docks and similar docks in other British ports, the Royal Navy wouldn’t have had easy access to the millions of gallons of rum it purchased and blended each year.

Preface

Before we get to the chapter excerpt, here is some important background context and terminology introduced in the prior chapter.

The West India Docks were a massive, man-made dock system carved out of the land in East London known as the Isle of Dogs. Today, we know the area as Canary Wharf. At the time of its construction (1800-1802), it was among the largest civil engineering projects in the world. Boats arriving from the West Indies would travel up the Thames and then enter the (mostly) land-locked dock system.

Rum Quay was a collection of buildings within the West India Docks devoted to storing and aging massive quantities of colonial rum in bond. Rum trading firms like Lemon Hart and Alfred Lamb imported and sold vast quantities of rum to the public, and these rums became known as London Dock rum. The same traders also sold to the Royal Navy, but that’s a story told elsewhere in The Rum Never Sets.

The heyday of London Dock Rum as a commonly used designation was roughly from the 1890s to the 1940s. A 1939 newspaper article provided a succinct definition of the style:

“London Dock” rums are distilled in Jamaica or Demerara, then barreled and sent to the London docks, where they are stored in the warehouses situated on the docks until properly aged. Eventually, they are bottled and shipped all over the world. This is where the name “London Dock” rum is derived— although the rum itself originates and is shipped in bulk from the West Indies.

In short, London Dock rum was “continentally aged” in today’s lingo. With this baseline definition in mind, let’s now dive much deeper into their history via the chapter excerpt below.

Chapter Excerpt - What Was London Dock Rum?

The story of every rum contains many chapters. From source materials, fermentation methods, and distilling to aging and blending, numerous choices impact the flavor. To better understand London Dock rum as a specific style of rum, it’s useful to first understand which types of rum came to Britain during the years in question.

RUM SOURCES

Production and trade volume records spanning more than two centuries show Britain had a strong preference for rums from its colonies. Longstanding business relationships, as well as British ownership of many plantations, certainly contributed to that preference; rums from French and Spanish colonies like Martinique and Cuba simply weren’t imported at high volume. However, Britain had numerous global outposts, so many colonies besides Jamaica and Demerara found representation in Rum Quay.

Each British sugar and rum colony had its own unique story to tell regarding its rum production and where it was consumed. Some peaked in production early and then declined, as was the case for Barbados, while others rose to prominence late in the game. Some were highly sought after and retained in London for home consumption. Others were not as valued and were exported from London to other markets.

While Jamaica, British Guiana (Demerara), Barbados, and Trinidad are known today as the major British rum colonies in the Caribbean, over the past three centuries there were many more. Some, like Suriname, are typically associated with a different European power; Suriname was briefly under British control before returning to Dutch control. Nonetheless, rum from Suriname found its way to London for a brief period.

Some colonies were combined to form new entities. The islands of Trinidad and Tobago are now a sovereign country, but in the 1800s they were treated as separate colonies. A reasonably complete list of rum-producing British colonies and other territories whose casks arrived in Britain and likely found their way to Rum Quay includes:

To get a sense of which types of rum came into Rum Quay, what follows is a brief synopsis of key British rum-producing colonies between 1800 and 1950. For a bit of perspective, one million gallons of rum per year meant the colony was a top-tier producer. At their peak, Jamaica and Demerara (now Guyana) produced more than four million gallons per year.

Barbados: Caribbean rum is thought to have been first made in Barbados circa 1640; a 1650 document directly references it. By the late 1600s the island was the largest rum producer in the Caribbean. Starting in the 1700s, Barbados rum production moderated, falling well below the level seen in Jamaica and British Guiana. In contrast to Jamaica, which sent most of its rum to Britain, Barbados rum exports went primarily to North America. George Washington, the first president of the new United States, was fond of Barbados rum and insisted on serving it at his inauguration.

Berbice: From 1830 forward, Berbice regularly exported more than 200,000 gallons per year. In 1831 it merged with Essequibo and Demerara to form British Guiana. However, rum production in Berbice continued to be tracked separately for a few years afterward.

Demerara/British Guiana: Although Demerara was not a British colony until 1815, it rapidly became one of the Crown’s largest rum suppliers. In 1831, British Guiana was formed from the Demerara, Berbice, and Essequibo provinces. However, the Demerara and Berbice names remained as distinct entities for some time in texts from the era. After 1840, British Guiana’s exports to Britain matched Jamaica’s and continued to climb. By the 1870s, British Guiana was consistently the largest rum supplier of the British empire.

Grenada: In the first half of the 1800s, Grenada regularly exported between 300,000 and 600,000 gallons of rum annually to Great Britain. However, production volumes dropped off in the 1860s.

Jamaica: By the 1700s, Jamaica was the largest producer of British Caribbean rum, far more than any other colony. In the early decades of the 1800s, Jamaica exported between four and six million gallons of rum each year; the island dominated Great Britain’s rum supply until the mid-1800s when British Guiana caught up. By the late 1800s, Jamaica’s exports were roughly half of what they were earlier in the century.

St. Vincent: Between 1810 and 1890, St. Vincent regularly exported more than 200,000 gallons of rum per year, peaking at 550,000 gallons in 1814.

Tobago: The island became a British colony in 1797 and rapidly became a significant supplier of rum to the Crown. Between 1809 and 1835 it regularly exported more than 300,000 gallons per year, peaking at 525,000 gallons in

Trinidad: Trinidad exported small amounts of rum in the 1800s. Not until 1915 did the island’s distilleries began churning out large quantities of rum— nearly one million gallons in 1915. By 1939, if not earlier, Trinidad rum was part of the navy’s rum blend.

TRANSPORT & AGING

Most of the rum arriving in London spent very little time aging in the Caribbean. New-make rum was casked and presumably sent off to England on the next available transport ship. Sugar and cane were called “crops,” implying they were not something stowed away in a Caribbean warehouse.

Evidence of this comes from an 1823 Jamaica Planter’s Guide citing the undesirable outcome of delaying the shipment to Mother England:

The sugar and rum were suffered to remain too long on the estate or barquadier without shipping, requiring sometimes one quarter to make up loss by ullage.

Ullage is a term for empty space in a vessel. In short, delay could cause loss of up to 25 percent of the rum.

Similarly, the 1908 Royal Commission report makes the same point during questioning of a Liverpool merchant dealing in Demerara rums:

What is the average age at which rum goes to the market?

It goes not more than two months after it is made as far as we are concerned. We bring it to this country, and I cannot tell you what becomes of it afterwards, except that we have to provide the buyers with twelve months’ storage.

An 1878 book on ship cargoes also suggests that rum was loaded onto ships during the Caribbean distillation season:

In the West Indies the shipments for rum and sugar are usually from the middle of February to the end of October; the new crop comes in late in February or early in March, when the principal shipments take place.

From this, we can posit that if rum was being aged in the Caribbean for any significant duration prior to sending it to England, the shipments might have been distributed more evenly throughout the year.

Also pointing to a rapid shipment for just-distilled rums: Evaporative losses are significantly higher for Caribbean-aged rums. Rum importers may have preferred their rums to slumber a bit closer to home in a cool vault under the Thames, minimizing the angel’s share and thus maximizing profits. Also, the West India Docks had an elaborate system to securely age rum in a controlled environment. Yet another possible reason for sending rum immediately to London: It made more sense to age where skilled coopers and casks were readily available.

Once aboard a ship, the ocean waves rocked the rum casks back and forth for a month or more. Before the advent of steam-driven transport, a sailing ship typically took at least six weeks to travel from the West Indies to Rum Quay. (The movement of rum within a cask, the extreme humidity, and the weather during the journey at sea affected the rum in ways we are only beginning to understand; Pillar Number 4 in the second part of The Rum Never Sets explains this technical aspect.)

The effect of sea aging was not limited to rum: Norway’s Linie Aquavit is famed for its centuries-old practice of cask aging at sea, a tradition still followed today.

Other surprising factors also impacted the rum’s aging:

The heat from new sugars placed close to casks of rum slackens the hoops, and leakage, of course, ensues. When the head of a hogshead of sugar, with the heading not too tight, has been placed in the hold of a coasting vessel end on to the head of a puncheon of rum, the rum has been drawn through to a depth of two or three inches in discoloration of the sugar. The steam from rum is said to be prejudicial to the health of the crew.

Many weeks after departing the Caribbean, ships full of sugar and rum casks approached England’s southeastern coast and entered the Thames for the final dash to London. Arriving at Blackwall, they entered the West India Docks, where company workers took control of the ship for its stay in the import docks.

Unloading casks required measuring and recording the quantity of rum in each, a process called gauging. Ensuring the Crown got every pence of tax due was of top concern! Measurement was usually via a rod inserted into the bunghole and pressed against the opposing cask wall. The portion of the stick that was wet or dry provided an estimate of the liquid volume in the cask.

Wrap-Up

Chapter Three of The Rum Never Sets also covers the following topics

• Plummer & Wedderburn – Mark or Style?

• Commercial London Dock Rums

• Commercial Navy Rums, which were effectively London Dock rums as well

Finally, a personal note about this book. As an independent rum historian, writer, and educator, most of my income comes from book sales, with a bit more from paid subscriptions to the Rum Wonk Substack. If you enjoy what I’m doing and wish to support my ongoing work, purchasing one my books and/or a paid subscription here is much appreciated.

Once upon a time (decades ago), specifying “Jamaica rum” in a drink recipe was a reasonable thing to do. The readily available options were similar enough in style to be effectively interchangeable. (Trader Vic was partial to Red Heart and Myers’s.)

That’s no longer the case. Classifying rums solely by their origin is an anachronism.

Today, all Jamaican rum makers offer a wide range of products, from unaged, high-strength funk bombs to refined, long-aged expressions best enjoyed in a Glencairn. Modern drink recipes that simply say “Jamaica rum” leave a lot of room for interpretation; a Rum Fire Old Fashioned will be a very different experience than an Appleton 21 version.

Now, some may insist the above is just a matter of “mixing rums” versus “sipping rums.” I detest these terms; they’re far too reductive, suggesting, for example, that Smith & Cross can’t be enjoyed neat, while Appleton 21 has no place in a stirred drink. Likewise, commonly used rum classifications have challenges and are ill-suited for teasing out the peculiarities of Jamaica’s many rums.

Nonetheless, I contend that there’s value in loosely defining a small set of Jamaican substyles covering much of the available spectrum of rums. To do this, I took a fresh, flavor-based approach.

In a previous article, I posited that rum’s fermentation flavors and aging-induced flavors can be assessed independently. Starting from a decently sized set of popular, readily available Jamaican rums, I placed each of them on an X-Y grid. The X-axis represents aging flavor intensity, while the Y-axis represents fermentation flavor intensity.

Side note: Colloquially, many enthusiasts use funk as a non-scientific proxy for the flavors that derive from Jamaican rum fermentation. As a nod to this tradition, the Y-axis uses funk rather than more esoteric terminology, including esters and volatile organic compounds.

The infographic above is the result. Whenever multiple rums are in close proximity on the graph, we might have the making of a substyle. (Wonky note: the technical term for this approach is clustering.)

Yes, it’s a fool’s errand in trying to represent the many flavors found in Jamaican rum in just two dimensions. However, if we focus solely on the intensity of fermentation and aging flavors, we might discover something useful. Or at the very least, I’ll have sparked a spirited debate!

Disclaimers

First and foremost, taste is subjective—everyone experiences a mélange of flavors differently. One person’s perception that Smith & Cross is off-the-charts funky runs counter to another person’s feeling that Smith & Cross is on the lower end of the scale, especially when diluting it to, say, 43% ABV, the strength of Planteray’s Xaymaca.

So yes, the X-Y locations for each rum on the chart are my perception. You might disagree, and that’s OK!

Secondly, I can’t possibly squeeze everybody’s favorite rum into this chart. All the indie-bottled DOK, TECC, STCE, HLCF, and WPH rums are nowhere to be found, but if they were, the Y-axis would extend upward quite a bit. Instead, I focused (mostly) on rums which are readily available in multiple countries while taking care to include a spectrum of rums from each of Jamaica’s four rum makers.

As for the substyle names, I admit I wrestled with some of them, as did some close rum friends I sought feedback from. For certain substyles — I’m looking at you, Tropical Drink Focus— any alternate names we discussed were too vague, too technical, or too lengthy. If you have better name ideas, please send them to me or add them in the comments.

Jamaica Rum Substyles

What follows are my very brief notes about each of the substyles, including examples of expressions that aren’t in the graph due to space constraints.

Generally speaking, Appleton’s rums tend to rely on aging-induced flavors and are typically the least funky in any substyle. Hampden’s rums strike a very different tone: unapologetically driven primarily by fermentation funkiness. While we’re yet to see a distillery-aged Hampden with 15+ years of aging, I imagine we will someday. (Yes, there are long-aged Hampdens available, but the continental aging is the norm here.)

Worthy Park and NRJ’s brands (Monymusk, Long Pond) typically fall between the extremes of Appleton and Hampden. (Again, high-ester indie-bottled marques are out of scope here.)

Unaged Overproof

This is the easiest substyle to identify. These rums are all unaged and range in ABV from 63% to 65%. Wray & Nephew was the originator of this style, dating back to the late 1950s. All the other first appeared in the last twenty years. They vary substantially in flavor intensity, with the Wray & Nephew and Monymusk towards the lower end of the scale, and Rum Fire and Charley’s JB at the upper end.

• Wray & Nephew White Overproof

• Worthy Park White Overproof/ Rum Bar Overproof

• Monymusk Overproof White

• Rum Fire

• Charley’s JB

Darkened

Historically, some Jamaica rums were substantially colored with a strong dose of sugarcane-based caramel, enough to noticeably influence flavor as well. Today’s newer Jamaica rums generally don’t add as much caramel, with Worthy Park 109 a notable exception.

A quick peek at the X-axis for this substyle dispels the notion that “dark Jamaica” rums were longer aged; quite the opposite, in fact. When a drink recipe from before the 1980s calls for dark Jamaica rum, look at the darkened substyle first.

• Myers’s Original Dark

• Coruba

• Worthy Park 109

• Hamilton Jamaica Black

Tropical Drink Focus

These rums are funky enough to stand out in most tropical cocktails despite jostling for attention among strong citrus and spice notes. While they can be enjoyed neat by those familiar with the gamut of Jamaica rums, they sometimes have some exposed edges. Still, they won’t punch you in the nose like the unaged overproofs will.

• Monymusk Classic Gold

• Worthy Park Select

• Rum Bar Gold

• Appleton Signature

• Smith & Cross

• Doctor Bird

• Hampden Estate 1753

• Stolen Jamaica Overproof

Balanced

Aging and fermentation funk flavors meet in the middle with the balanced substyle. The “hogo” is still there, but with the sharper edges rounded off and replaced by the warm, oaky tones familiar to whiskey drinkers. If you want to introduce a bourbon drinker to rum, and aren’t looking at Barbados rums, the balanced substyle is a good place to start.

• Hampden Estate 8 Years

• Worthy Park Single Estate

• Monymusk Special Reserve

• Appleton 8

• Appleton 12

• Appleton Legend

Long Aged

15+ years of aging in Jamaica’s tropical climate bring aging flavors to the foreground. During that time, wood-derived flavors intensify and meld together with the remaining funk. To truly experience all that this substyle offers, simply pour it into a glass and enjoy. Sure, you can make a “Millionaire Mai Tai” with the long-aged Jamaicans, but the flavors that took so long to develop may be lost in the mix amongst a torrent of citrus and spice. On the other hand, an Old Fashioned made with these rums is sublime!

• Appleton 15

• Appleton 21

• Long Pond MSR

• Long Pond ITP 15

• Long Pond VRW

Conclusion

The above isn’t intended to be the ultimate guide to Jamaica rum. Rather, the goal is to introduce you to thinking about the diversity of Jamaica rums while pointing out similarities between different expressions. And if you enjoy Jamaica rum in cocktails, you’ll have some ideas about other similar rums to experiment with.

Drop your thoughts in the comments! And if you like what you see here, consider subscribing below. It’s free!

Writing a book is a lonely pursuit. It’s not just the many months (or years) to put words down, but also the interminable wait for your words and images to pass through the production process and appear in physical form. Among the foremost highlights of an author’s life is announcing their creation to the world.

Today is such a day.

I’m excited to announce my latest book, The Rum Never Sets: 300 Years of Royal Navy and London Dock Rum, co-authored by Alexandre Gabriel of Planteray Rum. It was Alexandre who approached me with an idea for this book in late 2018 while I was working on what would later become Minimalist Tiki. I couldn’t have imagined at the time how much this project would influence my subsequent career, nor that we’d be the publisher.

While most books about rum history rightfully focus on who made the rum and where it was produced, e.g., the colonial Caribbean, far less attention is given to what happened once the rum arrived in Europe. Numerous European countries, including the UK and France, imported enormous quantities of rum and sugar from their Caribbean colonies. Countless millions of liters of rum flowed from the Caribbean to port cities like London, Liverpool, Marseille, and Bordeaux, where it was aged and bottled for sale.

The Rum Never Sets is a two-part book focusing on the UK’s angle of this story. I authored Part One, while Alexandre Gabriel wrote Part Two.

Part One: History of the West India Docks and Royal Navy Rum

Among the most transformative events in London’s history was the introduction of inland dockyards along the River Thames. The West India Dock was built in 1802 to maximize the incoming flow of colonial goods, such as sugar and rum, as well as the outgoing flow of goods bound for the colonies. More docks like the East India Docks soon followed, changing London’s landscape forever. By the 1820s, the West India Docks’ rum storage facilities held so much rum that it continues to stagger the imagination two centuries later.

A massive amount of rum arriving at the West India Docks — millions of gallons annually —was purchased by the Royal Navy. Indeed, the Royal Navy was the British Caribbean’s largest customer for 150 years and arguably kept the British Caribbean’s rum industry afloat during decades of financial turmoil. What the Royal Navy did with that rum, and how sailors consumed it, is shrouded in mystery and misconceptions.

Among the biggest mysteries is the exact recipe for the navy’s rum, which has never been revealed till now. Chapters Six and Seven of The Rum Never Sets contain the Royal Navy’s 1960s-era recipe, including source distilleries, specific marks, and exact quantities of each. This information was preserved via the handwritten notes of a gentleman who blended it for the Royal Navy.

Part Two: The Seven Pillars of Royal Navy Rum

In Part Two, Alexandre Gabriel examines Part One’s findings and outlines seven key technical factors (pillars) of Royal Navy rum over several centuries. The pillars combined cover many aspects of the rum’s sourcing, aging, and blending.

In addition to technical descriptions and analytical data for each pillar, Gabriel also demonstrates how they influenced his team’s work in creating and blending a modern rum based on each pillar, i.e., Planteray’s Mister Fogg Navy Rum.

Precursor

The precursor to the Rum Never Sets was Exploring 300 Years of Royal Navy Rum and Its Techniques, a limited-edition book published by Planteray and sold at trade events. In the year since that book’s publication, we (Wonk Press) added significant amounts of new material, reworked some of the original material, and added nearly 100 new images and a full index to make The Rum Never Sets a full-fledged Wonk Press book.

Below you’ll find the Table of Contents for The Rum Never Sets, which provides additional detail about what’s covered. I’ll have more to say about the book’s origin in future stories here.

Part One — History of the West India Docks and Royal Navy Rum (Matt Pietrek)

BRITAIN’S RUM HISTORY IN OVERVIEW

• Key Themes of British Dock Rum History

• The End of the Golden Era of British Dock Rum

• The Road Ahead

LONDON’S WEST INDIA DOCKS & RUM QUAY

• Advantages of the West India Docks

• Rum Quay

• Safety Precautions & Inspections

• Fire on the Thames

• The End of Rum Quay

WHAT WAS LONDON DOCK RUM?

• Rum Sources

• Transport and Aging

• Rum Styles & Merchant Marks

• Plummer & Wedderburn – Mark or Style?

• Commercial London Dock Rums

• Commercial Navy Rums

LONDON’S RUM MERCHANTS

• Plantation Owners & West India Docks Subscribers

• Wine & Spirits Specialists

• The Great Consolidation – United Rum Merchants

SOURCING BRITAIN’S MILITARY RUM

• The Age of Contract Bid Notices

• Rums of the Navy – 1700s

• Rums of the Navy – 1800s

• Rums of the Navy – 1900s

• Known Royal Navy Rum Blends Over the Years

• Navy Rum Suppliers

• ED&F Man

• Rum for the Army

ROYAL NAVY RUM PRODUCTION

• HM Victualling Yards

• Rum Arrivals

• The Royal Navy’s Vats

• Issuing Containers

• Rum Losses

• Navy Rum Quality

• End of an Era

• Understanding Alcoholic Strength & Proof

THE LAST NAVY RUM VATTER

• An Interview with Arthur Roberts

DRINKING THE ROYAL NAVY’S RUM

• A Brief History of Navy Rum Consumption

• The British Navy’s Version of Its Rum History

• The Daily Ration Ceremony

• The Battle For Sobriety – Grog Formulation Changes

• Temperance & the Royal Navy

• Black Tot – The End of Navy Rum

• Navy Rum Goes Commercial

• Navy Neaters

Part Two — The Seven Pillars Of Navy Rum (Alexandre Gabriel)

· PILLAR 1 - BLENDING RUMS OF DIFFERENT ISLANDS & COUNTRIES

· PILLAR 2 - DOUBLE AGING

· PILLAR 3 - THE EFFECT OF USED BARRELS

· PILLAR 4 - DYNAMIC AGING

· PILLAR 5 - ACTIVE VATTING

· PILLAR 6 - ISSUING PROOF

· PILLAR 7 - BURNT SUGAR “BROWNING”

Conclusion - The Enduring Legacy of Navy Rum (Alexandre Gabriel)