Pacific Northwest-made rums are perfect for summer — and year round
Ahoy mateys, gather round ol’ pirate Cap’n Rathbun so I can tell ye a tale. It has to do with rum, the heroic high-seas tipple, sworn liquid pal of pirates and anyone adoring bright sunshine and delicious drinks. It’s a spirit once beloved by President Thomas Jefferson himself, who had in a 1769 inventory 83 bottles of rum. Probably from Caribbean locales, from where rum traditionally sprung. But today a hearty host of rums are being crafted with care right here in the Pacific Northwest, a place renowned for cloudy days. Could there be pirates on the horizon?
While watching coastlines for a fleet of scurvy dogs sounds fun, the truth is that we’re luckier — those providing the rum are not pirates, but incredibly inventive distillers. And the list of distilleries either making rum now, or having made it in the past, is as long as a ship’s mast: Bardenay, Edgefield, Heritage, Just A Distillery, Puget Sound Rum Company, Moonlight Mountain, Milltown, New Deal, Old Log Cabin, Scratch, Skip Rock, Stillwagon, Stonehouse, Wayward and others.
What’s sailing our spirited Pacific Northwest distillers toward rum? For some, it’s the same spirit of adventure that has distillers making such far-flung potions as Italian amari and Nordic aquavit — they want to try their hand at making a whole shelf of products. “If your calling is to be a distiller, you want to try your hand at making everything,” says New Deal Distilling founder Tom Burkleaux. “And make it good.”
This boundless boozy creativity combined with a desire to learn defines many regional rummies.
For others, the historical aspect of rum beckoned, like with John HasBrouck, co-founder of Just A Distillery, which makes only rums. As he says, HasBrouck’s “rum journey started with an inherited pot still and a desire to sample rum that would have been available in the early days of rum in the New World.” That desire for a “period-correct Caribbean flavor” led him to a sugar cane juice base as well as a Barbados yeast “grown in a lab and dated to roughly 360 years ago.” Shiver me timbers, the inspiration for our distillers leads them to trying everything to get an enchanting rum.
Sometimes, a closer-to-home connection adds to the rum push for distillers. Take Tom Kelley, Puget Sound Rum Company co-owner. He came to rummaking via his parents, who had a timeshare in Antigua and brought back rums from their trips, which he fell for.
“Mom had celiac many moons ago, and at the time there wasn’t as much certainty about gluten in grain-based spirits,” Kelley says. “So, if anything, she tended towards rum when having a cocktail.” That influence flows into the rums he bottles today. Different distillers may have different routes, but the end result equals more rums being made than you’d expect in our rain-addled region.
More types of rum, too. There are many crisp, clear white rums, bursting with flavor like a ripe banana and ideal for summertime classic tropical cocktails. But the fleet of Pacific Northwest rums covers white rums plus aged darker rums ranging from amber toddlers to New Deal’s lush 10-year old Distiller’s Workshop rum, released last year.
Distillers are taking varying rum aging paths as well. Just A Distillery’s The Queen’s Share rum is aged in used Pinot Noir casks, Skip Rock’s Belle Rose Amber in used whiskey barrels and Puget Sound Rum Company has a rich and memorable award-winning rum aged two years in used port barrels. If that wasn’t enough rum — and there’s never enough for us true pirates — you’ll discover naturally flavored rums, like Scratch’s toasted coconut rum and Edgefield’s Three Rocks spiced rum.
These rums are being consumed happily by in-the-know local drinkers, bringing a little of the tiki spirit to glasses. It helps that distiller creativity is matched by Pacific Northwest bartenders. “Rum’s popularity is also driven by our strong cocktail culture, and all the great bars and bartenders having fun with rum on their menus,” says Burkleaux.
And it’s not just being used in “the good beachy, sweet, fun, fruity rum cocktails,” says Kelley. Many aged Pacific Northwest rums can substitute perfectly in classic whiskey and brandy cocktails. So heave-ho and follow HasBrouck’s advice: “When the cooler months arrive, rum toddies and hot buttered rum cocktails snuggle in with the rain and the snow.”That rain and snow is easy to forget on a summer Pacific Northwest day. As I’m writing, temperatures are coasting into the 80s, sunshine streaming. Today, there’s nothing I’d rather have than a rum cocktail. Happily, our distillers — pirates one and all, if friendlier than traditional sea-bound cutlass-raisers — have made it easier than walking the plank for us to sip scrumptious rums and drink local. So, embrace Pacific Northwest rums this summer when alongside your beach-and-poolside bikinis, shorts and Jolly Rogers. Then bring summer back into drearier days by rum-ing it up throughout the year. Yo ho ho!
A trio of top PNW white rums to try this summer
Our regional rum range is vast (visit the distilleries below to sample their full rum selections), but here we’re sticking to high summer’s favorite partner: white rums. I suggest sipping these white rums — our faves — straight first, then in cocktails. You’ll uncover a better-than-buried-treasure drink idea for each to get you started.
Rum47 White Rum
Puget Sound Rum Company | Woodinville, Washington
$34 | 750ml
Distilled in a Jamaican-style pot still off a base of organic panela (unrefined whole cane sugar) grown on a small family Colombian farm, this white rum is full of character — and proceeds from each bottle go to support cancer research. Named for the 47th parallel, where it’s made, you’ll be transported much farther south when savoring it, thanks to its caramelized sugary scent and lingering baking spices, vanilla, pineapple flavor. Try it in the sadly lesser-known early 1900s gem (a sort-of rum Sidecar) the XYZ Cocktail.
Ingredients
2 ounces Puget Sound Rum Company Rum47 white rum
1 ounce Grandeza orange liqueur (see note below)
½ ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice
Ice cubes
Lemon twist, for garnish
Directions
Fill a cocktail shaker three-quarters full with ice cubes. Add the rum, liqueurs and juice. Shake well. Strain through a fine strainer into a cocktail glass.Note: Traditionally this was made with Cointreau, but here we’re going with another Northwest-made delight, Grandeza. Its smooth orange-and-orange-peel and vanilla flavor match marvelously with the Rum47.
Distiller’s Cut Rum
New Deal Distillery | Portland, Oregon
$30 | 750ml
With an alluring aroma combining caramelized pastries and a blooming banana bush, once you smell this small batch rum you’ll be desiring a sip quickly. You’ll also be rewarded with an appealing taste of butterscotch, caramel, citrus flowers and beachside grass. It all comes from panela and molasses, distilled on a copper pot still after an in-house sugarcane fermentation. It’s perfect for tropical drinks, including making an absolutely divine traditional Daiquiri (I doubt you’ll be able to have just one).
Ingredients
2 ounces New Deal Distiller’s Cut rum
1 ounce freshly squeezed lime juice
½ ounce simple syrup
Ice cubes
Lime slice, for garnish
Directions
Fill a cocktail shaker three-quarters full with ice cubes. Add the rum, lime and simple syrup. Shake well. Strain through a fine strainer into a coupe or cocktail glass.
From Scratch Rum
Scratch Distillery, Edmonds, Washington
$34 | 750ml
Made from sustainably sourced, hand-cut organic panela, this rum won a Sip Best of the NW Platinum medal. It’ll take you happily hopping around the tropics and sub-tropics as you drink it, with an enticing toasted coconut nose flowing into a banana, vanilla and lychee flavor that’s alluring as a summer romance commenced under a palm tree. Try it in a Santa Cruz Daisy, a treat from days of yore that I found first in last-century gadabout Crosby Gaige’s Standard Cocktail Guide: A Manual of Mixed Drinks Written for the American Host.
Ingredients
2 ounces From Scratch rum
½ ounce maraschino liqueur
¼ ounce simple syrup
Crushed ice
Chilled splash of soda water
Mint sprig, for garnish (be sure to smack it before using)
Directions
Add the rum, maraschino and simple syrup to a mixing glass or cocktail shaker and stir well. Fill a goblet or comparable glass with crushed ice, and strain the mix gently over it, topping with more ice as needed. Add a splash of soda, give a brief stir.
A bonus signature rum drink for summer parties
We’d be remiss to not give you another drink to unveil around the pool, beach or backyard this summer, so here’s a fruity, rummy number you’ll dig. Called the Lake Union Fizz, it was created specifically for this article, so that you can serve it to friends as a unique signature drink at parties. All three of our exquisite white rums above go well in it, too — as does its delicious other Pacific Northwest ingredient, Scrappy’s uniquely wonderful Black Lemon bitters.
Ingredients
1½ ounces Pacific Northwest white rum
¾ ounces pineapple juice
½ ounce freshly squeezed lime juice
½ ounce simple syrup
Dash Scrappy’s Black Lemon bitters
Chilled club soda
Ice cubes
Lime wheel, for garnish
Directions
Fill a cocktail shaker halfway full with ice cubes. Add the rum, juices, simple syrup and bitters. Shake well. Fill a big highball or Collins glass three-quarters full with ice cubes. Strain the mix into the glass. Top with the chilled club soda. Stir gently.
Want to dance with a rum cocktail, but don’t want to work at it?
Listen, I get it. All this rum talk is making you awfully thirsty. But it’s summer, and that mercury is rising, and the idea of making a drink at home even with the best Pacific Northwest rums can sound like too much sweaty work. If you’re in this rummy predicament, and happen to live in the Seattle area (or be visiting), then can I suggest stopping by the city’s rummiest bar, Rhumba? Nestled in the Capitol Hill neighborhood at 1112 Pike Street, Rhumba has at current count 780 rum/rhum/r(h)ums available, including a good number of Pacific Northwest-made ones. You can sample the rums straight, but the bartenders at Rhumba also make superb rum cocktails.
