20 personalities decipher the last 10 years, and provide food for thought for the next 10.
How has the rum market changed over the last 10 years?
We’ve seen a premiumisation of the category, although between us I’d be hard pressed to say what a premium rum is. Let’s just say that these are the rums sold for €80 or more. Through our partnerships with Velier, with Plantation’s rare rums, with trading brands… we were already positioned in this segment, and we’re continuing.
We can also talk about the premiumisation of agricole rum. The best example is Neisson, which we’ve been pushing hard to give more space to its aged rums. Neisson is an important brand for us. We love Grégory and his intense, free-spirited personality. It was thanks to his ‘Esprit’ that I learned to love rhum agricole. I’d also mention RhumRhum and Bielle (which we had in our portfolio for a while), and more recently Isautier, which also makes a bit of agricole, and Papa Rouyo.
Other trends in recent years include Jamaica and its esters, which are a bit like the peat in Scotch whiskies. There’s a huge craze among wine merchants. It reminds me of the phenomenon we saw with whisky 25 years ago. People would come to the opening of the shop to make sure they had their bottle. This passion has been transposed from whisky to rum. There’s also blended whisky, but at LMDW we came to that quite late. We came from the world of single malt, from products that we drank neat… That’s also why, even though we saw the Diplomatico and Don Papa crazes coming, we missed them.
We came close to working for Diplomatico at the time, but it didn’t happen, and in the end he was as successful as he is today. At the same time, however, we opted for Plantation’s gourmet rums. And we moved up the range with them. On the other hand, we had a brand that was very much a négociant, with its single casks, its clairins, its Jamaica… It was Luca Gargano who convinced us that this would be the big trend of the future.
How will it evolve over the next 10 years?
I don’t have a crystal ball, but I have the impression that more and more distilleries are going to open in areas where they already exist: Martinique, Jamaica… But also in areas where there are few of them, such as Africa, Asia… After that, we’re on the lookout for new things, and what wins the day is always the tasting. If we like it, we’ll do everything we can to work with the distillery.
I also believe in the future of pot still rums. Most of the new distilleries that are starting out are equipping themselves with stills rather than columns. And I’m a great believer in agricolewhite rums. Personally, I think they are fabulous tasting rums, which I almost prefer to aged rums.
