I am the co-founder of both Rhum Fest Paris and Marseille AND Rumporter magazine. I started my rum career as the marketing man of Dugas, which is probably the most important rum importer in France.

In 2000 we had the idea of developing the rum we offered, which was quasi-nonexistent here. France has the chance of having a huge network of cellar-masters in up to 4000 independent shops (or as part of chains like Nicolas) that sell wine & spirits, who are very curious by nature and always looking for novelties. This allowed us to import 40 different brands of rums that represent a wide variety of origins in only 10 years. By 2011, having been investigating new brands at Ian Burrell’s Rum Fest every year (for 5 years), and having always enjoyed it, I realized that I really knew a lot of people in the rum business. So, I said to myself why not launch my own festival. The first one occurred in 2012 and the Rumporter magazine quickly followed.

 

As my associate, Anne says, ‘originally it was not my passion but it is so impassionating. With Rum You meet passionate people from the 5 continents –producers, journalists, bloggers, bartenders, historians . . .. You constantly travel in you head even though it is so much work that we don’t travel enough physically; Rum is a full world, offering you observations on a planet where you could stay forever without ever getting bored from tastings, food pairings to industry chats with engineers, passing onto historical discussions, and cocktails. Rum is a window on the world and it is the best and worst things: from the poor conditions of cane cutters in Mesoamerica to the best cocktail bars in London or New York. It is just addictive.

Everything that I said above.

I have been answering this same question for 5 years now. I think it will continue on as it is now: booming, improving, constantly changing, innovating and opening new routes. I love the reappearance of rum production in the US as it existed in the 18th century before Whisky took over; I love to see distilleries appearing in Thailand; I am impassioned by the evolution of Mauritius rum; I am astonished by the Renaissance of Martinique and Guadeloupe rums in islands where almost everything disappeared in 50 years (hundreds of distillery closed there between 1960 and now, the sugar cane was largely replaced by bananas in vast areas and now they are talking about replacing banana fields with sugarcane now!); Australia is jumping into the rum game as well; you have new rum countries appearing like Cihuatan from El Salvador. What will become of Cachaça? Will Havana Club finally make it to the American market? Will Cuba pay its debts with rum? etc, etc, etc . . .. It is a whole world, never ending, and always changing; Love it.

Ian of course for the inspiration through his festival and his humility. Rum is fun he says and he proves. The guy is opened not willing to keep things for himself as many people do believe they have invented the world.

Stephen Martin is probably one of the most cultivated bartenders that exist’s, he is a gold mine whose cocktails are each a perfect match of the intended history and taste. He is not renowned enough outside of France I think. I happen to know lots of fascinating bartenders but Stephen is just the top of the top; though he is not politically correct.

Alexandre Vingtier, the editor in chief and co-Founder of Rumporter, is data farm. His knowledge is hard to challenge whether it is whisky, rum, tequila, cognac or whatever, oh, and he is only 30 years old. That is impressive and challenging, you have to do your homework when you deal with a guy like that.

Anne Gisselbrecht our associate at Rumporter is the soul supplement of the magazine what makes us different from all other business or just tasting orientated magazines: she loves photos, art, literature and history and she brings all of this to the magazine giving it the ‘je ne sais quoi’ or ‘X-factor’ that makes the difference. She is constantly pushing hard towards perfection. Never rest!

Happy new year.