British rums

Craft distillers in the UK are turning their enthusiastic attention to a spirit that’s usually associated with tropical climes... We explore the burgeoning British rum scene and recommend six bottles to try

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The British Isles might not be the first place you think of when it comes to rum distillation. Blending, perhaps. The Royal Navy famously brought rum to England from various Caribbean nations to create the blend for the daily ration given to sailors, and to this day there’s no shortage of rum imported for blending, or being turned into spiced rum. But production of this spirit from scratch is usually associated with countries where rum’s raw material, sugar cane, is grown.

That isn’t stopping a growing number of British craft distillers who are distilling their own rum using imported molasses (the by-product of sugar production used to make most of the world’s rums) or other forms of sugar cane. There are now rum producers across the UK – as many as 70, by some counts. For British craft rum distillers, it’s worth going against the grain, so to speak, to have full control over the way their rum tastes.

‘I have complete freedom to adjust and tamper with every single variable that influences flavour development later in the process,’ says Doug Miller, founder and distiller of Scratch Spirits, based in Hertfordshire.

Lewis Hayes, founder and owner of dedicated rum distillery DropWorks, agrees. ‘We have full control over the quality of our production, and can ensure that every step of the production process, from raw material all the way through to the final spirit, is of the highest quality.’

PRIDE OF PLACE

Acknowledging the challenges in terms of difficulty and expense, Kentish distillery Greensand Ridge founder and distiller Will Edge