Kilchoman enters rum
Quite surprising news has reached us from Scotland, although it involves an area incomparably more remote and more tropical than the island of Islay. It has been known for more than a year that the owners of the distillery have secured £22.5 million in financing to expand and strengthen the brand's position. We learned about their plans for the tropics only now.
For here, as the trade press reported yesterday, Kilchoman Distillery Co. plans to build a distillery... rum in Barbados. As recently as August 2021, the company bought nine acres of land and the abandoned Bentley Mansion in the parish of St. Paul. Philip in Barbados. Now it has been announced that plans to build a rum factory at the site have been officially approved. Plans include the construction of distillery buildings, including warehouses, the purchase of sugar cane from plantations near Bentley Mansion and the production of rum from fresh cane juice and cane syrup. Two copper alembics will be used for distillation. The rum is to be matured at the distillery site, where a bottling line will also be installed.
Kilchoman's managing director, Anthony Willis, however, is not taking on the project completely on his own. In the preparation of plans to build a distillery and then produce rum is involved a veteran of this distillery specialty, Frank Ward, former director of the Mount Gay distillery known to rum lovers.
As you can easily guess, the distribution network for Kilchoman whisky produced in Scotland will be used to distribute rum in global markets. Kilchoman is present in 50 countries, including primarily France, Germany, the United States and China.
Kilchoman Distillery was founded in 2005 on Rockside Farm on the Scottish island of Islay and is now one of the leading players in the smoky, peaty Scotch whisky market. The project, which began as an expansion of the farm's operations to include whiskey production, has become a worldwide phenomenon, and the whiskey produced there has won a huge number of admirers. Rum seems to be the successor to whiskey in liquor markets, and the products of every more reputable, or even legendary, distillery are a commodity feverishly sought after by lovers of the drink from around the world. Expanding operations of Kilchoman Distillery Co. about rum production seems to be a move that is by all means understandable and business justifiable. It remains for us to wait for the first results of this activity.
[22.05.2023 / photo: for thespiritsbusiness.com]