I’ve had a taste for rum since I was old enough to drink.  My passion for rum developed as I took sailing trips to the Caribbean Islands.  Then I got busy adulting with college and the corporate world.  Then kids, family, dog and of course a boat.  I started SeaSpirits Distillery because of my lifelong passion for rum and the limited availability of high quality rum this far north.  As I did research I discovered that the vast majority of rum is produced on really old stills with outdated technology.  There is something nostalgic about tasting rum the way that pirates and British officers drank it but that is the Kill Devil of old.  New Technology helps make a super high quality spirit that pirates of yester year could only dream about!

I’m just getting started but the biggest contribution I’ve made so far is to bring a high quality rum made locally with modern technology to the northwest.  Seaspirits Rums have been received incredibly well and we are expanding quickly to meet demand nationwide.

I have always been a fan of rum, but it was not until my first trip to the Caribbean that I fell in love with the spirit. I remember the day distinctly, after a day of windsurfing and sailing I was sitting on the beach drinking barrel aged rum neat with a red stripe while watching the vibrant Caribbean sun sink below the horizon.

Today is such an exciting time to be involved in the world of rums! In this country, rum is in the beginning stages of its own renaissance. People are realizing that rum is so much more than the few big mass produced brands of rum. There are so many unique rums, each filled with their own personality and spirit and are quite enjoyable, even if you don’t believe yourself being a fan of rum. The United States has seen a premiumization of Vodka, Tequila, and Whiskey, and now it is the time for rum to shine.

Rum is in the early stages of a major renaissance.  Rum is the true American spirit and people are returning to it.   At The Boston Tea Party the tea was thrown overboard and the molasses was saved to make rum.  This love of rum runs deep in the American soul and people are rediscovering it.  Five years from today I see rum getting the respect that all high quality spirits deserve.  Rum is currently the Rodney Dangerfield of the spirit world.  Not for long!

My bucket list for the next year or so is in expanding my rum vocabulary when it comes to making cocktails, so I’ll reach for something other than my usual suspects. I also want to be able to make my drink recipes more readily available information for when I call out certain rums, like Coruba, to find suitable substitutions in areas where they are not distributed. In a year, I’d love to be picking out my own barrels for BG Reynolds Private Selection, but we’ll see how that goes.