English rum may still be a nascent category, but talk of a Geographical Indication further down the line could put it on the map, writes Eloise Feilden

Fifteen years ago there were no rum distilleries on English soil. The term ‘English rum’ denoted brands buying in liquid from elsewhere – namely islands in the Caribbean – and selling it under a British label. That all changed in 2012 when The English Spirit Distillery, founded by John Walters, became the first to distil and distribute its Old Salt rum from a site in Essex. Since then a category has emerged, or at least the beginnings of one. The number of distilleries producing rum in England using imported molasses or sugarcane now sits at more than 15.

The latest to join the fold was Outlier Distilling Company in 2020. Its founders are in the process of moving the distillery from an old milking shed on the Isle of Man to Guildford, Surrey. Operations are set to be back up and running by the end of April.

This move – a result of co-founder Ian Warborn-Jones’s personal decision to leave the island – is a significant one for a distillery whose identity is synonymous with its location in the middle of the Irish Sea.

So is Outlier likely to begin marketing itself as a proudly English rum? Gergo Murath, the distillery’s on-trade and advocacy manager, doesn’t count on it: “Our process is not defined by Englishness; our process is defined by good rum making,” he says. “We position ourselves first as a good rum, and second as a locally-made, high-quality rum.”

Added to this, raw materials used to make rum in England are necessarily imported from overseas, which muddles the idea of an English ‘identity’ even further. As Murath puts it: “We’re not using the abundant sugarcane fields of the UK to source our molasses.”

There are, of course, distilleries which choose to champion their English roots, but distilling locally in England is more often tied to quality control than to branding.

“Putting a Union Jack or an English St George’s Cross on the front? That isn’t for us,” says Lewis Hayes, founder of Nottinghamshire’s Drop Works distillery (pictured). “The rum category is something I’m passionate about, but it is fraught with disingenuous marketing. There are vast products out there that are low-quality alcohol with additives. I realised the only thing I could do was purpose-build a small batch distillery that would allow us to control the entire production process.”

English rum is yet to carve out a signature style. Rum ambassador Ian Burrell says the “fledgling category” doesn’t yet have an identity which “you can smell and taste and see a brand and say ‘that is English’”.

But mounting whispers of an English rum Geographical Indication (GI) could change that. GIs guarantee a product’s characteristics, authenticity and origin and protect them from misuse or imitation. Scotch, Cognac and tequila all have GIs and the recent development of an English whisky GI has raised questions about what could be next.

Rum expert Peter Holland says the notion of an English Rum Producers guild or similar is “on the cards”, but predicts it will be five to 10 years before the development of a GI comes to fruition. A number of questions need to be answered before plans can be formalised.

“The issue is how do you agree on rules without stifling innovation? That’s the first hurdle. And the second hurdle is, how do you regulate it?” says Hayes, arguing that English rum needs to mature before a standard can be set. “We’ve got to build successful businesses. Only at that stage can you ask what are the core values we all share, the common ground that we as successful businesses have, that we’re happy to try to protect.”

Olly Barkley, co-founder of Cornwall-based distillery Vapoura, agrees: “There’s no point in putting a GI in place if the rest of the world looks at it and goes ‘there’s no credibility in those rules’”.

It will take time, but that’s all the more reason for producers to begin work on the project now. As Burrell puts it: “You can’t run a marathon without taking your first steps.”