“Our rum’s about supporting and sharing everything we love about Brixton. It’s the old with the new. It’s people coming together to support, inspire and create,” Venning says.
If you’re trying to find the right location in London to site a rum microdistillery then really there is only one place and that’s Caribbean-inspired Brixton. That’s the reasoning of the makers of the new Market Row Rum whose petite still is set up near the local market where the botanicals such as Kenyan black tea and Nigerian hibiscus are gleaned.
Market Row Rum is marketed as a super-premium handcrafted botanical rum (retail price £34 for 50 cl) and is the inaugural release from the microdistillery being a blend of Jamaican, Bajan and Dominican aged pot still rums from five distilleries, which have been infused with Kenyan black tea, Nigerian hibiscus and red rose from Pakistan, all the ingredients being sourced from Brixton Market.
Market Row Rum is produced by The Brixton Distillery Company which is the brainchild of Laurent Lacassagne, former chairman and CEO of Chivas Brothers, and Patrick Venning, previous Chivas Brothers marketing director, who have more than 50 years of experience in spirits between them.
Chatting with Venning over Zoom just as fresh Covid-19 restrictions are imposed, it’s apparent that his mission with the new rum is a distinct product differentiation. He is testing how far you can ‘premiumtise’ rum, which has so far been relatively untouched by the boom in super- and ultra-premium brands which gin has so conspicuously enjoyed. It’s also about fun and Venning clearly relishes the fact that the sector remains ‘a little lawless’.
“Our rum’s about supporting and sharing everything we love about Brixton. It’s the old with the new. It’s people coming together to support, inspire and create,” Venning says.
His brand ambassador is Mikey Hirsch who boasts a strong rum pedigree. He explains that the new spirit is crafted from rums from distilleries in Jamaica, Barbados and the Dominican Republic. They are aged in old bourbon casks and re-distilled in Brixton in the 100-litre still.
“When you say Market Row Rum is botanical, people often mistakenly think it’s a spice rum. It’s easy to read the bottle and mistake this for spiced rum. There are similarities, both add botanicals and spices to their rum blend and redistill. Spiced rums are usually assumed to be quite sweet with the spices often overpowering the rum due to the added sugar or caramel flavouring. There is no added sugar in our rum, the botanicals are there to complement the flavours of the rum rather than to change them. I don’t think there’s anything else quite like it – it’s naturally dry and light, with woody flavours and a caramelised banana sweetness,” Hirsch comments.
Any rum needs to bring life to a decent daiquiri. Hirsch declares that Market Row has passed the test; they have been brewing up hibiscus daiquiris, making this their new signature cocktail.
Taste-wise Market Row Rum is naturally dry with a light taste, it has aromas of caramelised bananas and oak, and a smooth finish.The rum is markedly less sweet than most. And for those of us who like to sip rather than mix, it’s equally good over ice at staving off the lockdown blues. Make mine a double.
