Duff filed this observation away initially. But in 2010, he took the money he had been saving for business school and used it to start up a rum company in his native New Zealand instead.
While Duff had worked as a bartender for years, neither he nor cofounder Holmes had much experience actually making rum. But Duff says that was never the point.
“We were never going to be competing with whisky brands with 100 years of heritage who have been blending the stuff their whole lives. But we knew what we liked. We were seeking out a new generation who haven’t been exposed to rum, and we were coming at them with a modern approach.”
Duff and Holmes outsourced the distillation to some “excellent distilleries” in New Zealand. Despite the founder’s lack of distilling expertise, its rums have won gold medals at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition every year since 2010.
“We had to give people permission to drink rum,” Duff says. “In New Zealand, it’s fair to say it didn’t have a great reputation. As you Australians would say, it’s seen as a ‘bogan’ drink.
“But rum tastes good, and it’s a great cocktail drink. We had to make it cool.”
Duff and Holmes had one driving goal: their rum had to be accessible. They wanted smooth, soft rums that would appeal as much to wine drinkers as those used to liquor.
Rum is a strongly growing category, and most of that growth is in spiced rum, of which twice as much was sold this year than last. So it’s not surprising Stolen is launching its own spiced rum – a coffee and tobacco-flavoured concoction that’ll sell in Australia and America.
“Our spiced rum is part of a new wave of rum, it’s edgy and we think it’s what consumers want,” Duff says.
Aside from the rum itself, Duff and Holmes had one other goal. They wanted their marketing to be fresh.
Most of the world’s best rums are made in the Caribbean, which lends itself, quite naturally in the hands of a marketer, to the “pirate thing”. But smuggling stories aside, Stolen Rum has stayed away from that.
“It just didn’t feel right,” Duff says.
“My experience of rum was always urban, in little cocktail bars and back alleys in London. And if everyone’s clubbing around with one message, it’s really easy for us to do something different. For me, rum was a young spirit who lived in East London, and that’s what I tried to get across.”
Between 2011 and 2012, Stolen Rum nearly doubled its volumes, and Duff expects that to happen again this year. The company has opened a Sydney office, and when SmartCompany spoke to Duff, he was setting up another in Miami. Just nine people currently work for Stolen Rum, but the company is recruiting.
“We’re aiming to not only be the fastest-growing rum brand in the world, but to be innovative and create one of the most loyal fan bases,” Duff says.
With the Beam deal secured, that goal is one step closer.
Myriam Robin is a reporter for SmartCompany and its sister site LeadingCompany. She has degrees in economics, international studies and journalism. She likes writing about businesses taking risks and doing new things.
