Mount Gay's New Rum & How I Got The Exclusive Story For 57 Minutes

Mount Gay’s Single Estate Series 23_01 looks pretty spiffy and tastes it as well. (Photo courtesy Remy Cointreau)

Getting to break the news about a new release from a spirits brand — or really their PR firm — is both flattering and concerning. It’s certainly nice to know that I can be trusted to tell the story that goes along with the bottle in a reasonably compelling and accurate manner. And it’s also slightly worrisome that I can be trusted to tell the story at least reasonably close to the way they want it told. Am I a journalist or a shill?

In the case of Mount Gay, whose new Single Estate Series rum I wrote up for Forbes, it’s perhaps a little bit of both. I’ve loved their rums for as long as I’ve been drinking the stuff. Their 1703 expression — which, tragically, seems to have been discontinued — really opened my eyes to the whole category and remains, if not my favorite rum, then certainly in the conversation. Some of their limited edition releases are better than others, but I’ve certainly never had a bad one. So when offered the exclusive (I got to interview master blender Trudiann Branker one-on-one and got to run my story a full hour ahead of the rank and file, though thanks to wonky Wi-Fi I only had the exclusive for 57 minutes), I said sure. Only problem was, I hadn’t yet tried the rum, which was stuck in customs at the time. That broke a rule I try to enforce pretty rigorously — that I have to actually like the spirit before I commit to breaking the news about its existence. I can remember off the top of my head at least two instances where I’ve said, look, if you want the first article about your new expression to say it kinda sucks, I’ll do it, but…. In both cases I was thanked for my candor and the brands moved on. I have no desire to write gratuitous takedowns. Fortunately, the Single Estate Series is an excellent rum.

I’m happy to work with brands and their publicists, but I also want to be accurate in telling the story of what I’m writing about, even if the story is a little different from what I’m being told. For example, Mount Gay told me, on the record and after I asked specifically, that the Single Estate Series is the first time in their 320 year history that they’ve made a rum exclusively with sugarcane from their own estate. That just didn’t seem right — they owned the sugar plantation next to the distillery until the mid-1970s. The idea of Barbados rum makers forming some kind of cane collective back in 1703 seemed highly unlikely. But I wrote it anyway. Matt Pietrek, rum historian and author of the essential book Modern Caribbean Rum, spotted it and confirmed my suspicions that the history showed otherwise. So I changed a phrase in my article from “for the first time in the brand’s history” to “for the first time in living memory.” Who cares, you might ask? Well, me. And hopefully you too.

Anyway, read the article! It’s no longer an exclusive, but the rum is delicious (and expensive) and you should know about it. And yeah, the story behind it is pretty interesting, too. Link is -> HERE <-.