My good friend Shane - the talented singer/songwriter of ‘Hi-Tide’ duo fame -pulled up to Kaibo Beach the other day, bringing with him a bottle of rum. Turns out the rum was a gift for for me; a fine quality in any friendship I always say. As friends should, we opened the bottle and poured ourselves a glass each, dug our toes into the sand, and watched the boats pull in and out of the dock. Shane’s a true island guy. He’s in tune with the ebb and the flow of island life, quite literally, and metaphorically. Sharing a rum with Shane on the beach was probably the highlight of my otherwise average day.

Island Company rum is fairly new to the market. Positioning itself as “Simply the Smoothest”, I could not agree more; the offering is quite slick. The front of the label promises the delights of ‘five times distilled’, ‘zero carbs’ and ‘gluten free’. The back of the label goes bolder by promising ‘an exceptionally clean aged rum that has never existed before...Welcome to Paradise’. Maybe it was the rum; maybe it was that I needed a pause in my day; maybe it was Shane; it doesn't matter. This rum offers to fulfil the common dream that mankind shares - the belief that someday we will all get away to the beach, where we will soak up rays, and sip boat drinks while the sun sets. On that premise, it certainly delivered.

Appearance: blonde, light yellow straw

Aroma: delicate citrus and bamboo wood

Taste: clean and dry, intense vanilla, caramel, hints of black pepper spice. Slight sweetness of muscavado sugar

After taste: lingering cracked black pepper, vanilla essence

Rum vs Whisky: The debate.

There’s something cheekily liberating about the world of rum. It’s the outlaw, the tropical renegade of the spirits world, thumbing its nose at the formality of its barrel-aged brethren. Whisky might wear the suit and tie, but rum’s the bloke in flip-flops, grinning, rum cocktail in hand, as he tells you he called in sick to get out on the boat. And Alfie Solomons of Peaky Blinders fame said it best: “Rum’s for fun and f***ing, innit?”

Let’s be clear—this isn’t an attack on whisky. Whisky is the patriarch of the drinks cabinet. It’s the measured pour in a dark wood-paneled office while you negotiate mergers or contemplate the meaning of life. Whisky is your stern, overachieving older sibling who went to Oxford and still lectures you on asset diversification over Christmas dinner.Rum? Rum is the cousin who shows up unannounced, wearing sunglasses indoors, with a mischievous grin and a tale that starts, “You’ll never believe what happened in Havana…”

Rum doesn’t take itself too seriously. While whisky aficionados debate peat levels and the precise number of years something has been nestled in a sherry cask, rum drinkers are busy inventing the next daiquiri variation. Rum’s roots are in revolution, rebellion, and a good time. It’s a spirit that was born on sun-drenched shores, not somber Scottish moors. To bring the analogy home: whisky is the Ritz Carlton, Rum is Kaibo.

Upstairs at Kaibo gets this energy. It’s why, on Wednesdays and Sundays we’re bringing our Rare Rum Bar Canape & Cocktail nights. Forget stiff whisky flights this is about creative cocktails, exquisite pairings, and the sheer joy of rum in all its playful, tropical glory. Whisky tastes like boardrooms, cigars, and inherited wealth. Rum? Rum tastes like hammock naps, bonfires on the beach, and that one time you accidentally wound up in a limbo contest at the Kaibo Barefoot beach BBQ. It’s sweet, it’s spicy, it’s smoky it’s a carnival for your taste buds.

Let’s be honest, does a dram of whisky make you want to jump on a boat in a white linen suit, to zip across flat waters to Upstairs at Kaibo? Rum does that.

Whisky’s history is about perfectionism. Rum’s history is about piracy, rebellion, and doing what you damn well please. The entire industry once ran on smuggling and swashbuckling. Even today, a bottle of rum feels like a link to a secret history of rogues and risk-takers. Whisky can keep its Royal Warrants; rum’s patron saint is Blackbeard. Now, I’m not saying whisky is boring. It has its place. A good whisky can make you feel like you’ve cracked the code to adulthood, like you’ve got it all figured out. But rum? Rum reminds you that sometimes it’s okay not to have it all figured out. It’s okay to let loose, laugh loudly, and dance barefoot under the stars.

What do you buy the man who has everything? Well almost everything, I still keep looking at Ferraris on eBay.

This was the question Mrs. Connoisseur put to me recently, as my birthday loomed. Knowing the Ferrari was a long shot, I responded with the usual “A nice pair of socks will do thanks my love”. Bless her cottons, when on the big day I unwrapped a 1 liter finely hand-crafted used American oak bourbon barrel. She’d come up with the perfect gift that I had been unable to envision. This barrel was ripe and ready for aging rum. Game on. The thoughts of taking some poor excuse of a rum and aging it into one of the finest sipping rums known to man, had me dreaming of the consequential fleet of Ferraris, parked neatly in front of my established aging facility, stocked and stacked with barrels floor to ceiling. Just visualize the Far Niente forecourt, with ferraris and coconut palms as far as the eye can see.

Well done.

As reality set in, I began my research on aging, and after a quick internet search, I did what any self-respecting man would do, ditched the instructions, and winged it. Straight down to the liquor store, I picked up a 1.75 liter of Appleton Estate. Why? Well I believe Appleton to be one of the most true expressions of Rum, no messing about. Just quality rum, aged and bottled. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying Joy Spence does a bad job, at Appleton quite the opposite. As my old chef Dad told me, if you start out with shit ingredients, you will probably end up with a shit dish. Taking these words, I opted to take Appleton’s quality and improve upon it.

And so the fun began. As it turns out, aging rum can’t quite be described as fun. It falls more into the category of watching paint dry. Or waiting for the lottery to deliver. After soaking my new barrel in fresh distilled water for 24 hours, this expanded the dry wood of the barrel, and stopped any leaks. Then I filled her full of Appleton and that was that. Feeling quite pleased with myself that I had managed to master the rum aging process, it was about time I entered into some real research, and poured a nice slug of Eldorado 15yr. I sat back and waited for the magic to start.

As you can probably image, that magic takes time. I suppose that’s why it’s called ageing. Unlike my attitude toward my own ageing, I was keenly eager to see this project ripen. After two weeks, my first taste test. You would not believe what I found. This deep golden liquid tasted just like…… well, Appleton. Not even a tiny taste adjustment. The only change was the amount in the barrel. At least 10% of the barrel had gone! At first, I thought the 17-year old boy had been tucking in. He ain’t no angel, and I don’t like sharing, but the Angels’ Share had taken a bloody big sip out of my barrel.

So, what is the Angels’ Share you ask? The rum folklore goes, the Angels take their cut from every barrel of distilled spirits. It may be a little, or it may be a lot, depending on the environment, but the Angels will not be ignored. In the simplest of terms, the Angels’ Share is the amount of distilled spirits lost to evaporation, from the barrel or cask, into the air, as the rum ages. Wood is a porous material, that expands and contracts with the seasons. This same expansion and contraction happens with wooden barrels, as their precious cargo magically matures inside. The amount the Angels take each year varies widely based on barrel size, time, environmental conditions and even the location within the warehouse. Although mine was located in the kitchen, and I’m not sure if that’s better or worse.

No blog is complete without a reference to size, and that it does matter. You might assume the larger the barrel, the faster the evaporation rate. In fact, it’s the opposite; the smaller the barrel, the faster the evaporation rate, because there’s more liquid by volume in touch with the wood. This is in touch with the air, which draws the Angels’ Share out of the barrel.

And the bit about Location, Location, Location? One year of aging in a warm and humid climate like the Caribbean is completely different than one year in a climate like the Isle of Islay. Scottish distillers are allowed to write off 2% of their production volume each year to the Angels’ Share. When it comes to Caribbean Rum, their Angels’ Share may average closer to 10%, and could be as high as 16% in the first year. It’s thirsty work in Caribbean heaven, apparently. With Caribbean recording average summer highs of around 98°F compared to 66°F in Scotland, the levels of evaporation and aging rate are greatly accelerated. If two exact barrels of liquid were placed in Scotland and the Caribbean at the same time, the barrel in Scotland would have to remain there for around three years to equal just one year in the Caribbean.

Dad’s done a lot for his family.

So go ahead, show a whole year’s worth of appreciation by giving him another tie.

Or – and this is probably better – don’t do that.

Instead, visit Kaibo Upstairs for Father’s Day Lunch; because Upstairs we’ve got what he wants this year. Rum. In a hip flask. For keeps. ‘Dad-oration” of this magnitude can leave one famished and thirsty, so the smart move is leave the cooking and cocktails to us.

Join us and explore the unusual world of the Rare Rum SupperClub for yourself. Cocktails will be served, and you may reap the realisation of the wider world of rare and fine rum.