The British Rum Renaissance

Rum has become one of the most closely watched spirits in Britain. UK rum sales rose sharply over the past five years, and by 2023 the market was valued at more than a billion pounds, outpacing whisky by value in the off-trade for a second consecutive year. Spiced and flavoured styles have led much of that growth, while higher-priced sipping rums have started to find a following of their own.

Behind the sales figures sits a supply side that has changed just as fast. Britain now has dozens of rum producers, a number that some counts put at around 60 to 70. A generation ago, rum in Britain meant imported bottles on a shelf. Today it also means British-made liquid, produced in more than one way, and a scene still working out what British rum will come to mean.

The growth has a long backdrop. Britain has been a rum-drinking and rum-trading nation for more than three centuries, from the sugar trade to the Royal Navy ration. What is new is the domestic making of it. For most of that history, British involvement meant importing, blending and bottling rum distilled elsewhere. The recent shift has added British distillers who make the spirit here, and the two approaches now sit side by side under the same category name.

There is no single method behind British rum. The category covers two distinct production models, and both are legitimate. Understanding the difference is the key to reading a British rum label.

Under the first model, a producer imports finished rum from the Caribbean and then blends, spices or infuses it in Britain. This draws on a long domestic tradition. Britain has imported and blended Caribbean rum for centuries, and much of the spiced rum made in the UK is built this way. The base spirit is distilled at origin, and the British work happens after it arrives.

Under the second model, a producer imports molasses or another form of sugar cane and runs the whole process in Britain, fermenting a wash and distilling the spirit from scratch. Because Britain's climate cannot grow sugar cane, the raw material is shipped in, but the fermentation and distillation happen on British soil. Both models are widespread, and neither is inherently superior. They are different routes to a British rum, and the honest producers under each are clear about which one they follow.

Much of the recent momentum has come from England, where distillers have taken up rum alongside the gin that started the wider craft movement. English Spirit Distillery in Essex is often credited as the first British operation to distil rum commercially from scratch, in the early 2010s, and others have followed.

Greensand Ridge in Kent makes its Wealden Rum from surplus molasses drawn from a nearby sugar refinery. The Cornish Distilling Company, founded in 2016, produces a range of rums from refined molasses, including a spiced expression. Newer arrivals such as DropWorks in Nottinghamshire, established in 2023, have invested in rum as a primary product rather than a sideline. These are producers working under the from-scratch model, fermenting and distilling in Britain, and they have given the category a domestic distilling base it did not have before.

Making rum from scratch in Britain is harder than blending it, which is part of why fewer producers do it. The molasses or cane has to be imported, the wash fermented and the spirit distilled, and then, for aged expressions, matured for years before sale. Britain's cool climate slows maturation compared with the Caribbean, where higher temperatures push spirit in and out of the cask faster. Producers working this way are making a long-term commitment rather than a quick product, and the results are only now reaching the shelf in numbers.

The label English rum is a loose one. Rum is now made across the UK, in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland as well as England, and the English producers are simply the most numerous of them. What unites this group is the from-scratch method rather than a shared geography, and together they have turned British-distilled rum from a novelty into a small but real part of the category.

Spiced rum has been the commercial engine of British rum. It is the style most UK drinkers reach for, and it suits the way many British producers work, since spicing and infusing can be done here whether the base is imported or distilled at home. Vanilla, cinnamon, ginger, citrus peel and baking spices are common, and the balance between them is where a producer's signature shows.

Flavoured rums beyond the traditional spice profile have grown alongside, from fruit-forward styles to darker, richer builds. A smaller movement toward unspiced sipping rum has emerged in parallel, aimed at drinkers who want to taste the base spirit itself. The category is broad enough to hold all of these at once, which is part of why it has grown so quickly.

Why spiced leads in Britain is partly practical. Spicing and infusing can be done here regardless of where the base spirit was distilled, so it is open to both production models and to producers without a still of their own. It also meets a settled British taste. Spiced rum is the entry point for many UK drinkers, and it has carried the wider rum revival on its back. The risk in the category is over-sweetening, and the producers taking it seriously tend to lean on real spice and restraint rather than sugar.

Because the two models are not marked in law, the label is where a buyer works out what is in the bottle. A few habits help. Look for a clear statement of where the rum was distilled, not only where it was bottled or blended, since distilled in and produced in do not mean the same thing. Check whether the producer names its base, whether Caribbean rum or British-fermented molasses. Watch the sugar, because some spiced and flavoured rums carry a heavy dose of it, which is legal but worth knowing about. None of this makes one model better than the other. It lets you buy with your eyes open, which is the whole point of a transparent label.

British rum does not stand apart from the Caribbean tradition. It grows out of it. The Caribbean is the historic home of rum, and its distilleries remain the reference point for the category, both as a source of base spirit for British blenders and as the benchmark of style for British distillers.

The relationship runs deep in British history. Rum was tied to the Royal Navy for centuries, and the daily rum ration, ended on Black Tot Day in 1970, kept Caribbean rum at the centre of British life for generations. That heritage is part of why rum feels native to Britain despite the sugar cane growing an ocean away.

The modern British scene sits within this lineage rather than replacing it. Producers who import Caribbean base rum are working directly with the source. Those distilling from molasses in Britain are applying Caribbean-born methods to British production.

That benchmark cuts both ways. British rum invites comparison with the Caribbean the moment it uses the name, and drinkers familiar with Jamaican, Barbadian or Guyanese styles will measure a British bottle against them. The better British producers welcome the comparison rather than avoid it, treating the Caribbean not as a rival but as the standard the category was built on.

Jerry Can Spirits is one veteran-founded British brand within this scene. Its Expedition Spiced Rum is built on a Caribbean rum base and macerated in small batches by a British partner distillery, with 5% of profits going to military charities. Whichever route a producer takes, the Caribbean remains the tradition British rum is measured against.