#86 British Rum Special - Dropworks, Outlier, J. Gow: History, Production, GI, Tasting, Rum Market, Future of Rum, British vs. Caribbean
About this episode
The episode explores the development and challenges of British rum with industry pioneers.
We sat down — hungover, under-slept, and drinking before nine in the morning — with three of the people actually building British rum from the ground up: Lewis Hayes of DropWorks, Collin van Schayk of J. Gow, and Gergo Murath of Outlier. Between them they cover the full range of what this young category can be — Lewis running Europe's largest rum distillery out of Sherwood Forest with England's first copper double retort still, Collin fermenting wild yeast isolated from orchids beside a 2,000-litre pot still on an uninhabited Orkney island, and Gergo repping Outlier's wine-yeast, high-gravity, unfiltered rum out of the Isle of Man after thirteen years behind some of London's best bars. We trace how strange it is that Britain drank rum for centuries without distilling a drop of it until 2012, and dig into what's actually stopping British rum from having an identity yet — the fact that of roughly a hundred brands calling themselves British rum, only a third are fermenting and distilling here, and what a Geographical Indication might do about that. We get into the guts of production — dunder, backset, battonage, cane honey, double retorts versus double pot stills — and challenge the…
People in this episode
Host: Tristan Stephenson
Guests: Lewis Hayes, Collin van Schayk, Gergo Murath
Topics covered
- British rum
- rum production
- Geographical Indication
- tasting
- rum market
- history of rum
Keywords
- British rum
- rum distillery
- copper double retort still
- wild yeast
- Geographical Indication
- rum market
- tasting notes
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: DropWorks, J. Gow, Outlier
Places: Sherwood Forest, Orkney, Isle of Man, Britain, UK
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