"A journey of such daring that it makes one wonder how the sun ever set on the empire." - Sir Ranulph Fiennes
The World’s Greatest Living Explorer (as voted by the Guinness Book of World Records) has teamed up with the UK’s Original Rum Distiller for an exciting new collaboration: a Great British Rum that is set to put the UK on the map for premium rum production.
For those that haven’t heard of Sir Ranulph Fiennes, he is a great man indeed. His exploits include vertically circumnavigating the world, crossing both Antarctica and the Arctic on foot; discovering the Lost City of Ubar in Oman; and climbing Mount Everest at 65 years old. He is one of Britain’s best examples of daring, endurance and determination. Ran and his team had an idea for creating a Spirit of Adventure: an ambitious Great British spirit of superb character and quality, that Sir Ran could put his name to. After some discussion, it became clear that only Dr John’s experience and skill at distilling would fit the bill for the project. And so, as both master distillers and big Ran fans, we set about embarking on Sir Ranulph’s next great adventure.
The rum we’ve made for Ran is very special indeed. We’ve started by fermenting and triple distilling pure sugar cane molasses to an exceptionally high standard. But instead of putting the rum into a wooden barrel to age for a year or more, we have distilled the rum with the wood; and skipped the ageing process altogether. A technique that sounds deceptively simple: but it takes the skill of a true master distiller to pull off such a feat, grabbing the exact flavour compounds from the wood that we want, while leaving the bits we don’t want in the still.
We have used three different woods for this project: each one inspired by some of Ran’s favourite and best-known expeditions. These are Canadian sequoia (British Columbia Rivers Expedition), Norwegian pine (Jostedalsbreen Glacier expedition) and Omani date palm (Lost City of Ubar expedition). By distilling with these woods, rather than infusing, we are able to grab a different range of flavours that influence the molasses base. Not only have we produced a rum that is timeless; but also opened the door for an entirely new dimension of flavour influences.
"Look for deep orange, caramel and spiced Christmas cake on the nose. Tobacco and vanilla, followed by a mix of milk and dark chocolate, then a final lick of golden liquorice."
We’re very proud of the rum we have created here: this is quite simply a world first, and we are excited to see where this exciting adventure into rum production takes us. We’re also proud to be working with Sir Ran in this endeavour: what better partner for a fine spirit that we hope will challenge assumptions and help to cement England as a producer of fine rum.
The First Edition is now available to purchase online at www.sirranrum.com. This limited release is wrapped in a replica map from Ran’s expedition to the Lost City of Ubar in 1992, and presented in a beautiful box.
