L

Rum
Rising Rum’s got the juice these
days, and it has the
numbers to prove it.

By Jack Robertiello

The Rhumbar’s Zombie is made

with Ron Zacapa, apricot brandy,
Angostura Bitters, fresh lime, passion
fruit and pineapple juice.

18 | JUNE 2009 www.cheersonline.com

L
ast year was kind to rum. The second-largest spirits category
grew by 2.7 percent in 2008, adding 650,000 cases to reach
24.56 million nine-liter cases overall, according to Cheers parent
The Beverage Information Group. Premium brands are the
hottest; the Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S. reports that
those rums grew 8 percent last year.
great success, says worldwide director of beverage for Hard
Rock, Cindy Busi, although they got out in front of the trend a
little early when they introduced Mojitos earlier in the decade.
“We tried seven years ago to introduce both Mojitos and rum
sangrias, also on the menu now, but our customers just weren’t
ready for them,” she says. “I’m a huge fan of rum, but we were
Some of the growth has come from spiced or flavored brands ahead of the trend then.”
used to spike cocktails with tropical flavors—like guava and Rum is a focal point at Cheeseburger in Paradise, which
mango—while other aged and more complex brands are operates 36 units through the U.S. Of the chain’s 45 signature
entering the U.S. market from the Caribbean and Central drinks, 21 are made with the spirit. “Rum is obviously very big
America, expanding the range and quality of products. As rum
offerings multiply and sales rise, bar and restaurant operators
increasingly are making room on the back bar for more.
On-premise, rum is in the sweet spot for a few reasons: the
continuing popularity of the Mojito and its Brazilian cousin,
the Caipirinha; the increasing interest in rums from around
the world; the resurgence of Tiki drinks—and the creativity
of modern bartenders and beverage executives who are finding
useful the broad variety of flavors that rum offers.
The Mojito, though, still is a big driver of rum sales.
“The Mojito is hands-down our number one drink,” says
Adam Kanter, owner of Rum Bar in Philadelphia. “We have
10 different kinds on our menu, and they outsell almost every
other drink on our menu. Customers are definitely still Mojito
crazy.” He adds that Mojito Monday continues to be their
strongest night aside from Fridays and Saturdays, with Mojitos
prices between $9 and $11 and accounting for more than half
of the night’s total sales, food included.
While P. F. Chang’s China Bistro isn’t exactly rum-focused,
according to beverage director Mary Melton, the leading drink
across their 133 units is the Bacardi-based Asian Pear Mojito, $8,
which accounted for $5 million in sales last year. The second most
popular rum drink on their menu is Chang’s Mai Tai, $7.50.
The 10 Mojito varieties at Cuba Libre in Philadelphia, Atlantic
City and Orlando are by far the most popular, according to the
operation’s marketing director, Stacy Schulist, perhaps because The Tiki Bowl (top) and the
they use fresh-squeezed sugar cane and a specialty mint variety. Hemingway Daiquiri (right) are
popular at Rhumbar in Las Vegas.
At least one seasonal specialty, the Grilled Pineapple Mojito,
has become so popular that executives have placed it on the
standard drink menu. All sell for $10 each.

POPULAR ALL AROUND

It’s not just Mojitos that are driving rum trends. The second
most popular drink at Rum Bar is the Caipirinha, priced from
$8 to $15, where Kanter stocks ten brands of cachaça, rum’s
Brazilian cousin made directly from sugarcane. The Dark and
Stormy, priced at $8, is the third most popular drink.
For 45-unit Hard Rock Cafe, where spirits and rum play
an especially important role, the top-selling drink is their
Hurricane. Mojitos returned to their menu two years ago with

www.cheersonline.com JUNE 2009 | 19

 Decor at the Rum Barrel (above) is evocative of the pirate taverns of the 1800s. A rum sampler (right) is served on a driftwood plank.
Wednesday night is
“Save the Daiquiri” night at
Rum Bar in Philadelphia.
20 | JUNE 2009
from a concept perspective, because a lot of drinks we do are
rum-based,” says Monica Tary, director of training and beverage
for Cheeseburger in Paradise.
Partly due to that interest in rums, in March Cheeseburger
added three new rum-based Margarita variations: the Barbados
Rumrita, made with Mount Gay Eclipse, Cointreau, mango
flavoring and orange, lemon and lime juices; the Sambarita,
made with Sauza Gold Tequila and Cruzan Guava flavored
rum; and the Fuzzy Pineapple, made with tequila and Bacardi.
Mojitos still are very popular at the concept, too. They offer
five versions: a Classic with Mount Gay; Traditional with
Bacardi; the Colada with Captain Morgan Parrot Bay and Piña
Colada mix; the Pomegranate with Malibu Passion Fruit and
pomegranate flavor; and Mango Peach with Malibu Mango and
peach flavor. Both their Mojitos and their rum Margaritas are
priced at $6 each.
Rum Barrel Bar & Restaurant in Key West, Fla. has served
for the last three years a mix of loyal locals and tourists who
descend on the small resort town, stocking an enviable selection
of more than 130 rums in its location next to a pirate museum
that the company also owns.
With a pirate theme, including skull and crossbones, Rum
Barrel is “trying to give an aura of the pirate taverns of the
1800s,” says managing partner Jeff Sorg.
Most of their drink sales come from the specialty menu,
where the leader is their $9 Rum Barrel, a signature drink made
with Bacardi Select, Bacardi Gold, Bacardi 151 with cranberry,
pineapple and orange juices and a splash of grenadine. Other rum
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The Hard Rock Cafe’s lineup of rum drinks include (from left) the Mojito, Liquid
Remedy, Ultimate LIT and the Rum Runner.
drinks on their menu are divided into four sections—Muddled,
Whacked, Rocks and Up—and include the Island Barrel, made
with Cruzan Coconut, Pineapple and Mango rums, as well
as grenadine, cranberry, pineapple and orange juices, and the
Marooned, made with Bacardi Coco, Cruzan Vanilla, cream of
coconut and pineapple and orange juices with a Bacardi Select
float. All sell from $8 to $9 each.
ADD SOPHISTICATION
Creative bartenders are turning to rum for inspiration. The
cocktail list at RumBa in the 424-room InterContinental Hotel
in Boston, developed by Southern Wine & Spirits of Nevada
mixologist Francesco Lafranconi, includes the $14 Rumbullion,
made with Bacardi 8, orange curaçao, lime and pomegranate
juices, a proprietary flavor blend and a float of Demerara rum.
Another creative offering is their $12 Caribbean Swizzle, made
with Gosling’s Black Seal, lime juice, Angostura Bitters and
pineapple ginger beer.
Cheeseburger in Paradise
serves a bevy of rum drinks
including the Watermelon Snow
Cone (just one of three flavors
they offer), Tranquil Breeze,
Barbados Rum Rita and the
Summer Skyy.
22 | JUNE 2009
The popularity of operations such as Rum Bar, RumBa, Rum
Barrel and Cuba Libre have awakened other operators to the fact
that customers have gotten more knowledgeable about rum. The
recently opened Rhumbar, located at the main entrance and patio
of the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas, stocks about fifty types of rum
even though the bar is small, according to Michael Frey, managing
partner of the concept’s owner, Drive This! Entertainment.
“Rhumbar is a modern interpretation of classic Caribbean
culture,” he says. Along with Daiquiris, drinks served include
classics such as the $12 Trader Vic-inspired 1944 Mai Tai,
made with Appleton Estate Reserve, lime, orange curaçao, rock
candy syrup and orgeat, and the $14 Don the Beachcomber’s
Zombie, made with Ron Zacapa. The bar also includes house
specialties such as the Tatonga, made with Montecristo Spiced
Rum, Cruzan Mango, fresh Daiquiri mix, pineapple juice and
Angostura Bitters.
Many operators are expanding their brand selections beyond
the predictable. “Customers are coming in talking about the
differences among types of rums—gold versus flavored or
spiced, for instance—and showing more interest in them these
days,” says Cheeseburger in Paradise’s Tary.
Melton of P.F. Chang’s agrees. “We are seeing more and more
interest in those high-end rums out there. This past year we
started to see some of these new rums make a dent in what we
sell, things like 10 Cane, a really fun rum from Trinidad that’s
a little more gritty and upscale; people see it as a little more
artisan. Then we began to start seeing people coming in looking
for Pyrat rum and ordering it straight or on the rocks, which is
a fun thing to start to see.”
She’s seen the core rum list reach eight, up from two not so
long ago. There also are eight other rums that units are allowed
to add, including Sailor Jerry, Myers’s, Mount Gay and two
Malibu flavor extensions.
Promotions are becoming more specific as different types of
rum drinks and styles gain in popularity. At Rum Bar, they’ve
recently launched a Daiquiri menu and a “Save the Daiquiri”
Wednesday night. Supported by Rhum Clement, the promotion
offers various styles of the classic, including the Hemingway,
made with rum, grapefruit juice and maraschino liqueur.
“It has been a slow-growing promotion, though it hasn’t
caught on like the Mojito,” Kanter says. He also hosts Tiki
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 Leading Rum Brands
(thousands of nine-liter cases)
Brand Supplier 2005 2006 2007 2008p % Chg
Bacardi Bacardi USA 8,740 9,000 9,180 9,364 2.0%
Captain Morgan Diageo 4,711 4,899 5,246 5,453 4.0%
Malibu Pernod Ricard USA 1,460 1,515 1,668 1,632 -2.2%
Castillo Bacardi USA 1,175 1,150 1,125 1,045 -7.1%
Cruzan Rum Beam Global Spirits & Wine 526 555 611 648 6.1%
Ronrico Beam Global Spirits & Wine 515 534 528 471 -10.8%
Admiral Nelson Luxco 230 275 330 410 24.2%
Sailor Jerry William Grant & Sons 57 125 213 344 61.5%
Myers's Diageo 297 304 315 320 1.6%
Barton Rum Constellation Spirits/Barton 198 205 222 235 5.9%
Mount Gay Rémy Cointreau USA 190 190 197 207 5.1%

Total Leading Brands 18,099 18,752 19,635 20,129 2.5%

Others 3,941 4,121 4,281 4,428 3.4%
Total Rum 22,040 22,873 23,916 24,557 2.7%
(p) preliminary.

nights, and he just revamped the menu to include a volcano
bowl drink that serves eight.
A TOUCH OF SPICE
Beside the venerable Captain Morgan, other spiced rums are
picking up steam; Rum Barrel’s Sorg mentions Sailor Jerry and
Kilo Kai, while Kanter sees those two as well as Montecristo
Spiced and Papagayo Spiced, with Sailor Jerry the current
favorite at his place.
Both of these single-unit operations benefit from customized
marketing. At Rum Barrel, that means the 30-page rum bible,
which includes notes about rum making, its history and origins,
aging production, regional differences and notes about each rum.
Sorg also offers two types of samplers on his menu—customers
can get four 2½ ounce drinks or the same 2½ ounce portions of
any four rums they chose.
Kanter at RumBar offers the Rum Passport, now in its fourth
edition. Customers who order all the rums on each passport receive
a bottle of rum as a reward. The first passport listed 33 rums and
the prize was a bottle of Clément X.O. “Our newest, renamed Rum
Treasure Map, has 86 rums to finish, [almost] all sipping rums…
and the prize is a bottle of El Dorado 25 Year Old.”
In most cases, though, these rums take a back seat to the
category leaders. Even at Philly’s RumBar, nearly 85 percent of
sales derive from mixed drinks, and much of that from standards
such as Bacardi and Coke; Bacardi sales were up two percent last
year, and both Captain Morgan and Cruzan grew by more than
four percent, according to The Beverage Information Group.
With choices growing and palates expanding, it seems the rising
rum tide is strong enough to lift all boats. 

Jack Robertiello is a former editor of Cheers, and he’s a judge at

such events as the San Francisco International Spirits Competition
and the International Rum Festival. More of his writing can be
found at http://drinksink.blogspot.com.

At Cuba Libre, Mojitos run Get more on the leading rum brands
the gamut from the Grilled Another and download rum recipes from leading
Pineapple Mojito (top left) to
the Pomegranite Mojito (left)
Round mixologists at Cheersonline.com/more.
and the Classic (above).

www.cheersonline.com JUNE 2009 | 23