W
hen will it be rum's turn? To climb the price
and reputation ladder that is.
It's not like there aren't a slew of su-
per-premium, high-quality rums in the
market - just this June at the Beverage Alcohol Retailer Con-
ference in Minneapolis, two brands (Don Q from Puerto Ri-
co's Seralles Distilleria, and Ron Abuelo from Panama's Varela
distillery) showed exceptional aged rums. In the former case it
was a vintage 10 year old and the Gran Añejo 9 - 12 year old;
in the latter, expressions with Oloroso and Port cask fi nishes.
There are numerous super-premium, aged expressions of
rum from virtually every producer and brand made. But the rum
category has a problem in that its most popular styles - white,
spiced and fl avored - haven't seemed to be able to create custom-
ers who want to step up in price or quality.
Long dominated by two enormously popular brands (Bac-
ardi and Captain Morgan), the rum category lost ground for the
fourth year in a row in 2016, dropping just over one percent to
24.4 million 9-liter cases. Rum has also clearly had a harder time
participating with the trend among spirits for premiumization - it
now accounts for about 11 percent of all spirits sold in the U.S., but
just under ten percent of the value.
The absence of many broadly successful higher-end rums has
been noted by many, and changing that isn't going to be easy.
The attributes of the still popular but stagnant types of rums -
fresh, mixable, fl avored, easy to drink - don't transfer easily to
more aged expressions, though of all aged spirits, rum might be
the most approachable.
REBOOT
Rum deserves a super-premium reputation upgrade, and some producers are ready to take on the challenge.
BY JACK ROBERTIELLO
RUM
26 Beverage Dynamics • July/August 2017
www.beveragedynamics.com
