In this episode we talked to Pepe Álvarez, founder of San Juan Artisan Distillers, the only Puerto Rican distillery making pot still rum from fresh sugarcane juice in a true farm-to-bottle setting. You may recall we featured Pepe as one of three interviewees in an episode back in 2021, but we wanted to bring him back for a solo interview so we could take a deeper dive into what we both think is a super interesting distillery making great rum. It was also a chance to speak more broadly about the new wave of craft rum distilleries that have launched in Puerto Rico over the past decade or so, ope ..read more

In this episode, we sat down with Steve Jefferson, co-founder and CEO of Kuleana Rum Works, a distillery on Hawaii's Big Island that's putting their own spin on fresh cane juice rum. From growing their own heirloom Hawaiian sugarcane to sourcing and blending rums from around the world, they have a unique approach that's resulting in some pretty damn good rum. We chatted about: Going from sailing around the Caribbean to starting a rum distillery in Hawaii Working with a 30+ year veteran of Martinique rhum agricole on Kuleana's production process The big gamble Steve made to acquire the 45 acres ..read more

With John on vacation, I flew solo on this episode to welcome Ben Inglis, distillery manager and co-founder of The Islay Rum Company, to the show to get the full story on his unique approach to Scottish rum. If you listened to our Guide to UK Rum episode, you'll remember that John and I rated both of the Islay Rum Company rums we tried quite favorably, so we'd been hoping to talk to Ben ever since. We discussed: How Ben convinced the Vintage Malt Whisky Company to back his vision of Islay's first rum distillery instead of building a Scotch whisky distillery Scottish Gaelic pronunciations The p ..read more

This week, we’re introducing a new episode format — the Semi-Blind Rum Review! In these reviews, one of us will know the identity of the rum being reviewed and one of us will be going in with no information about the rum whatsoever, besides its color in the glass. Our goal is to hopefully provide an unbiased and fun look at new(ish) rums you might be curious about. We'll also be publishing video versions to YouTube. In this episode, we reviewed: Shakara 12-Year Thailand Rum (the new release from La Maison & Velier) ABV: 45.7% Molasses Column Distillation Price: Around $50-60 Transcontinent ..read more

In this episode, we're back with a fresh entry in our Rumcast Guides series — and this time we're taking on the rums of the United Kingdom! Over the last 12 years or so, the UK has seen an explosion of domestic rum distilleries, with the number now reaching over 25 (and counting). We set out to taste a wide selection of these rums to get a sense of the emerging category's characteristics, standout bottles, and notable distilleries, encountering everything from straightforward crowdpleasers, to long fermentation, dunder-charged flavor bombs, to unique profiles we hadn't encountered before. Foll ..read more

In this free bonus episode, we're releasing global rum ambassador and Equiano co-founder Ian Burrell's full interview from our 100th episode, which was full of interesting nuggets about the development of Equiano, rum education, where we can expect to see exciting new rums come from over the next several years, and much more!  Also, we try to guess our way through a mystery sample provided by Rumcast Patron Kyle in DC, only to fail spectacularly. P.S. Did you know you can support The Rumcast on Patreon now and get bonus episodes, happy hours, and more? You can! Head to patreon.com/therumc ..read more

Without further delay, we're super excited to share our 100th episode of The Rumcast with you! As we've hinted, this episode is special to us, and was really a labor of love. Rather than going with the typical format, we invited a dozen past guests to return for individual interviews where we looked back at how rum has evolved since 2019 (when we started working on the show), and where they think rum is headed over the next 5 years or so. You'll hear from: Kate Perry of La Maison and Velier Zan Kong of Worthy Park Eric Kaye of Holmes Cay Ian Burrell, the global rum ambassador and Equiano co-fo ..read more

Per tradition, we're back with our predictions for what will happen in the world of rum in 2024 — from trends, to releases, to new projects, and beyond.  In the spirit of accountability, we also take a look back at last year's predictions for 2023 and grade how close each one came. Have a listen and send us an email at host@rumcast.com to let us know your predictions for the new year! P.S. Did you know you can support The Rumcast on Patreon now and get bonus episodes, happy hours, and more? You can! Head to patreon.com/therumcast to check it out ..read more

Happy holidays and New Year (in advance), everyone! In our fourth annual Year in Review episode we take a look back at our favorite rums of the year in the following categories: Unaged molasses rum Unaged cane juice rum Aged rum (5 years or less) Aged rum (Over 5 years) “New to me” rum Best value rum Most surprising rum Overall rum Plus, we each throw in picks for Distillery of the Year, along with another round of "Am I the a**hole for not liking this rum?" Have a listen, and let us know your favorites in these categories from the past year! Also, what did we miss? What were we too high or lo ..read more

In this episode, we went deep on the eight marks of Jamaica's Hampden Estate and the making of the recently released 8 Marks Collection with Peppie Grant (Tour Manager at Hampden), Daniele Biondi (Export Manager at La Maison & Velier), and Howard McCalla (Production Manager at Hampden). Speaking with people from both Hampden and La Maison & Velier allowed us to get the full story behind the 8 Marks Collection, from the rum itself to how the release came together in the first place. We discussed: How the idea for the 8 Marks Collection came about Challenges in creating a unique product ..read more