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Based on the celebrated work of tworestaurant pioneers of the 1930s (Donn“the Beachcomber” Beach and “Trader Vic”Bergeron), the South Pacific-themed fad hasmade its way back as a component in manybars today. Best known for wacky Polynesiandécor, bamboo fixtures, island bric-a-bracand gaudy serving vessels like volcano bowls,it’s the drinks made with three, four or morerums that have put Tiki back on the map.And while many of the rum-focusedoperations are only tangentially Tiki, theyhave discovered the wisdom of stocking 50or more rums at a time, and of developingcustomer loyalty through education aboutits history and about regional and stylisticdifferences in production.Even brands are making the Tiki con-nection:
Tommy Bahama
Rum recentlyintroduced some collector’s edition valueadded packaging that embodies a Tiki themethrough artwork, textured packaging andsummer cocktail recipes.Bacardi’s new
Seven Tiki
pays tribute tothe South Pacific legend of Polynesian navi-gators, The Great Fleet, and the Tikis theycarved into seven canoes. This spiced rum ismade from quality sugarcane, sun-baked In-donesian nutmeg, Madagascar vanilla beansand other mellow spices.
The new Rhumbar at the MirageHotel in Las Vegas
here are many contributors to rum’s surging popularitytoday: the growth of Latin culture and population, theincreasing number of flavored rums and the country’s love affairwith the Mojito are only three. But don’t forget the effect of Tiki.
from tiki topremium: rumkeeps growing
By Jack Robertiello
The Zombie, Rhumbar
Martin Cate, who helped establish For-bidden Island in Alameda, CA, as an inter-national Tiki destination, soon will openSmuggler’s Cove in San Francisco, a bardesigned to celebrate rum with Tiki drinks,traditional Caribbean beverages includingthose served in pre-Prohibition Havana,and a selection of rare rums.“From having a very traditional Tiki barwith a good rum selection, I found people re-ally love Tiki drinks, but I wanted to broad-en the spectrum as I learned more aboutrum,” Cate says. “Tiki drinks are a great partof classic cocktails but rum’s story is so mucholder, and people in the Caribbean havebeen drinking some wonderful, elegant andsophisticated rum cocktails.” Cate intendsto broaden even the selection of rums heserves from the well, making classic Bajancocktails with rum from Barbados, or Cubandrinks with lighter, Cuban-style rum.In Las Vegas, the recently opened Rhum-bar, at the Mirage Hotel is far from Tiki style,but behind the bar guests find 50 or so rumsand the drinks include Tiki classics, saysMichael Frey, managing partner. A moderninterpretation of classic Caribbean culture,Rhumbar’s menu includes such drinks asthe Trader Vic-inspired “1944 Mai Tai” and“Donn the Beachcomber’s Zombie”.It’s a national trend. At the RumBa atthe InterContinental Hotel in Boston, near-ly 100 rums and rum-based drinks make themenu, including the “Caribbean Swizzle”(Gosling’s Black Seal, lime juice, AngosturaBitters and pineapple ginger beer) and theMai Tai (Appleton Reserve 15 year old, Bar-bancourt Estate Reserve, orange curacao,orgeat rock candy syrup and lime juice).This fall, Skyy Spirits’
Flor de Caña
isilluminating a rum cocktail specialty: thepunch. NYC bartender Phil Ward, knownfor his trendy tequila bar, Mayahuel, is col-laborating with Flor de Caña to create sig-nature punch recipes using seasonal ingredi-ents like cinnamon and teas.Of course, the Mojito has a lot to do withbreaking the rum and cola habit (though an-ecdotal bar reports indicate the tandem stilldominates). But with RumBa and other barsusing fresh squeezed sugarcane and Carib-bean mint in their Mojitos, tweaking recipeswith grilled pineapple and using more priceyrums, it’s no wonder that premium rumsgrew 8% in 2008, according to the DistilledSpirits Council (DISCUS).The Mojito offers many marketing op-portunities.
Don Q
rum has been rampingup its U.S. expansion through events in-cluding a reception at New York City’s Jazzat Lincoln Center, where Esteban Ordonezof NYC bar Apoteke presented his versionof a Mojito using Don Q Grand Añejo andyerba buena, while mixologist James Meniteof the Porterhouse restaurant created the“Rum Plum” and “Caribbean Club Punch”using Don Q Cristal.“It's a good time to be a fan of premiumrums, with more brands from more coun-tries now available,” says Dori Bryant of Polished Palate, who has hosted rum eventssince 2002. “When I held that first event,there were precious few experts focusing oncane-based spirits. Now there are dozenswho devote volumes to reviewing and pro-moting rum.”As the rum category has grown, moresuppliers are developing products and intro-ducing new brands. Diageo is building sup-port for their national launch of Guatemalan
Ron Zacapa
by highlighting its quality as astandalone beverage, unusual for a categorywhere mixability has long been the keyword.Likewise, Infinium Spirits’ popular
ZayaGran Reserva
Rum is produced in Trini-dad, where the rum rests in medium charredwhite oak barrels, for a minimum of 12 years.The result is a rum that is smooth and full-bodied, meant to be sipped.Making that connection with otherhigh-end spirits helps rum’s imagery at thepremium end, says John Pennacchio, directorof spirits for Kobrand Corporation, importerof Jamaica’s
Appleton
rum. Making consum-ers aware of Appleton’s sipping quality is thegoal of a new ad campaign, “Sip Up,” aimedat whiskey and brown spirit drinkers. “We’veseen a heightened consumer demand for amore flavorful and complex taste experience,which plays perfectly to our Appleton Estatedistilled rums,” says Pennacchio. One adreads: “It spent 12 years in a barrel. The lastthing it wants to see is the inside of a blender,”while trade info communicates how Appletonis made from estate-grown sugarcane in copperspot stills.Other rums are working hard in this sip-ping arena.
Ron Abuelo
is another estate-grown super-premium rum, produced inPanama by Varela Hermanos. According toSteve Armstrong, national sales manager forVarela Imports, the company intends to ex-pand beyond Florida, where it is especiallypopular, and New York. “Aged rum is easierto get into than Scotch and even bourbon,”says Armstrong. “For most consumers, it’san easier entry point for straight spirits.”The company currently offers an Añejo andAñejo 7 Year Old, and the Añejo 12 YearOld rum will be rolled out later this year viaa recently signed deal with Van Gogh Im-ports for broader U.S. distribution.
Rum Marketing
Appleton gets its ‘Sip Up’message across withoutdoor advertising“Ron Abuelo
CATEGORY FOCUS
Ron Matusalem
Even in such tough economic times,brands see the wisdom in adding top shelf extensions;
Mount Gay
has released MountGay 1703 Old Cask Selection, an aged pre-mium dark made from rums 10 to 30 yearsold. The new label’s suggested retail pricenears $100.Marketing is still key for high-end rums:in addition to Tiki packaging, Tommy Ba-hama has its own bar at the new Yankee Sta-dium in New York, a branding opportunitymeant to capture the essence of the TommyBahama message to relax, have fun and enjoylife to the fullest.Other brands are focusing on Internetmarketing.
Pyrat
rum’s new website givesconsumers an opportunity to learn moreabout its first consumer-focused brand cam-paign to support the high-end rum from An-guilla. Trade-focused print advertisements forPyrat, “the enlightened ultra-premium darkrum,” started appearing in 2008 in trade pub-lications. “Rum was one of the top growthcategories in the spirits industry last year,up 3% from 2007,” says Matt Carroll, chief marketing officer at The Patrón Spirits Com-pany. “As the popularity of rum continuesto increase, we see great potential for morepeople to discover and enjoy our portfolio of ultra-premium selections.”Even rums from the Dominican Repub-lic, long neglected in the U.S., are taking ad-vantage of premiumization. Originally,
RonMatusalem
Rum was founded in Cuba in1872. Since it was forced out of the countryby Castro, garnering the nickname “rebel of rums”, Matusalem, part of the Proximo Spiritsportfolio, is now produced in the DominicanRepublic. Its distillation and blending tech-niques uniquely come from the solera agingsystem familiarized by sherry and brandy pro-duction. There is a longstanding fascinationwith Cuban tradition stateside and Matusa-lem manages to capture its spirit.
Brugal Extra Viejo
, for the first timeavailable in the U.S., is being promoted assippable straight or on the rocks. The recentlaunch rounds out the collection from theBrugal family, making rum in the DominicanRepublic since 1888. Brugal is the largest-selling rum brand in the Dominican Repub-lic and among the top five rum brands inthe world, and Extra Viejo is a blend of theirolder reserves.Also from the DR comes
Vizcaya VXOP
Cask 21, following a Cuban tradition since1960, using fresh pressed sugarcane juicefermented and distilled in small batches andaged in oak barrels that formerly held bour-bon. This process, more common in FrenchCaribbean rums like
Rhum Clement
and
Barbancourt
, has made Vizcaya a frequentaward winner at competitions lately.For
Atlantico
, another super-premiumproduct, the rums made in the DominicanRepublic hold great promise. Atlantico ismade with small batch, aged rums blendedtogether, and the blend is then married insmall bourbon barrels for a year or two. Then,using a solera process, the rums rest for 15 to25 years.
Tommy Bahama’s bar innew Yankee StadiumBrugal Vizcaya
CATEGORY FOCUS
■
Rum is made in most parts of the worldwhere sugarcane is produced, but mostcome from the Caribbean with about 85%of the volume produced in Puerto Rico.
■
Rum continues to be the second largestdistilled spirits category. IWSR forecaststhat rum will continue to grow from 22.7million cases in 2007 to 28.7 million casesby 2012. Additionally, as the economybecomes more uncertain, consumers flockto familiar cocktails and more reasonablypriced spirit categories, like rum.
■
The spirit made from fermented molassescame to be called rum in English,
rhum
inFrench and
ron
in Spanish. In the Caribbean,it was considered a cure-all for varioustropical ailments and afflictions. Plantationowners also sold it to naval ships that werestationed in the Caribbean, often offeringa discount in order to keep friendly shipsclose by and pirate ships away.
■
Through Prohibition and into the ‘30s,Americans began visiting the Caribbean, ingreater numbers, returning from vacationswith a taste for Planters Punch and othertropical cocktails. The Mojito, for example,enjoyed its first wave of popularity duringthe 1930s. It was discovered by Americansin Havana and made fashionable byErnest Hemingway.
■
The ‘40s saw the Mai Tai emerge as apopular “exotic” cocktail. Throughout the‘60s and ‘70s, as vodka became thedominant white spirit in America, countlesstiki bars kept Piña-Coladas, Daiquiris,Cold-Rum Punches, Hot Toddies andother rum cocktails on the drink menu.
■
The mojito started to come back strong inthe ’80s, beginning in Miami’s SouthBeach. In the early ‘90s an interest in NuevoLatino cuisine brought more classic rumcocktails back to the table – a trend thatcontinues today.
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2 parts Cruzan Aged Light2 Parts Cruzan Aged DarkDash bitters1/4 parts simple syrup1/2 parts fresh lemon juice1 1/2 parts fresh orange juice1 1/2 parts fresh grapefruit juice
Service Provider: Beam Global Spirits & Wines, Inc.
- from Andrea Bearbower,Cruzan brand education manager
Trading Up
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