Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. My name is Roger, I do beer for Binny's, but I'm also a major rum enthusiast, so I'm very excited for today's podcast. Today, we're going to be talking all about rum, and we have a very special guest. We have Bob Gunter from Kolo'a Rum Company. Thanks for joining us, Bob. Thank you. Aloha. Who else was in the room here today? You've got me, Jenna. I do communications for Binny's and various other things, including drinking rum today. I'm Chris. I do wine, like a good rum cocktail. I like to throw around words I don't understand, like mahalo. So when we were doing podcasts, I think especially during the lockdown, we were doing a lot of, we like to call them the quarantine-y episodes, and did some quarantine-y episodes. So we're huge fans of rum, so this is really exciting for us to sit down and talk about your extensive lineup of rums here. I've been a fan for years. First tried your rum through your dark expression, but it's pretty exciting to see all the different varieties that you have now. Before we get to actually taste through some of these, could you give us a little bit of a background on just the history of the distillery and where you're at? Sure. This September will mark 13 years that we have been bottling and selling rum. Of course, the project started a year and a half before that with building out the distillery and sourcing the equipment, which was an adventure in and of itself because we're so remote out in Hawaii and where are we going to find distillery So how did you source equipment? My background in Hawaii goes back to working in the sugar industry for many years. And of course, rum has to be made from sugar cane. I was introduced to a group of industry veterans, one of whom was a former president of Brown Foreman Distilleries in Kentucky. And he had some friends that had always had this pipe dream of building a distillery in Hawaii. We talked and I thought, yeah, let me sign on. And so we built and commissioned two different distilleries on the island of Maui. So during that six years, I met a lot of people in the industry, made a lot of connections, and also really learned how to build distilleries and get them permitted and operational. And so I decided to contact friends of mine back on Kaua'i, where I had lived for years before, and found that there was interest. And so we pulled together a group of investors who put up the capital to get the project started. And my contribution primarily was the experience and the knowledge that I had gained on these other two projects, and network of people that I had met. And so we decided to start Kolo'a. And so that was sort of the evolution of that. So when it came time to source equipment, I reached out to my network of contacts within the industry, and some of whom were based in Louisville. I call it the crown jewel of our distillery is an old 1,200 10-gallon solid copper pot still with a copper column with 7 plates and copper condenser built for and used by Brown Foreman in Louisville for all those years up until the early 2000s. And then for whatever reason they decided to decommission it and put it up for sale. We bought the still and immediately took it over to a major still manufacturer based in Louisville, a company called Vindome. Right, yeah, the classic. They're the classics and they're the real deal. But we had them take the still, break it apart, cleaned it up, and put it back together, hydro tested it to make sure there were no leaks. We had it shipped over to Kaua'i. What's unique about that, not only the age, but it was five-eighths inch solid copper, had the copper column, so it's a bit of a hybrid. So we were able to get a little higher proof. It had a copper coil on the inside for additional steam. So it's steam-powered? Steam-powered. When we apply steam, we can be up to temperature for distilling in 55 minutes or so, thereabouts, so pretty efficient. Wow, yeah. Old technology, but that technology doesn't change, really, distilling, and it works perfectly for us. Interesting. So when you were planning to do this, I know a lot of the rums on the shelf are made from molasses. So was the decision out the gate that you were going to make that style of rum, or were you going to make like a cane juice rum or like a rum agro-coal? One of our goals or mission in the beginning was to help support our local agricultural industry and sugar industry in Hawaii. And as I mentioned before, that was my background. So that was near and dear to my heart. And at the time that we started Kolo'a Rum in 2009, there was an operating sugar mill on Kaua'i making sugar. From my experience in the industry though, I know full well the challenges working with molasses. Number one, it's thick, it's gooey. Yes, it's relatively inexpensive. But molasses is an industrial by-product of making sugar. What are we going to do with it after we ferment and distill? How do we dispose of it? So it's an environmental issue, our question. Obviously, we have to protect the environment. Environmental laws and regulations in the United States are pretty strict relative to other countries, which is a good thing. They are particularly strict in Hawaii because of just the situation there. Any runoff, for example, goes into the ocean and can damage the reefs. So it's a real concern. So the prospect of using molasses, disposing of it was a real challenge. Also in sanitation, again, just the consistency of it, you're constantly having to flush and clean your hoses, your valves, your fittings and all of that. Our thought was, OK, what's the alternative? Cane juice? Well, you know, us being able to crush enough cane and use that juice quickly enough, because cane juice is very fragile. Once it's crushed, it will, within 30 minutes, if it's exposed to the air, immediately go into spontaneous fermentation and or spoil. So we decided, OK, why not use cane sugar? It's stable. If it's packaged, it will last indefinitely on the shelf. So you've got time to work with it. You have to hydrate it, of course, in order to inoculate with yeast and go through the fermentation process. Still, when you're done, your wash, what's left over after distillation is relatively benign. This is really interesting to me because, you know, with rum agricoles, you get that really vegetal, grassy thing going on from the cane juice. And with molasses, you get a whole other thing. So you're kind of like somewhere in the middle. And I know that sugar has been grown in Hawaii since, you know, almost 2000 years or something, right? 1500 years. Yeah, that's a good point. Most people don't realize that because sugar cane in Hawaii was introduced by the ancient Polynesian from voyagers when they migrated in waves many, many, many years before Western contact. In fact, when Captain James Cook, quote unquote, discovered Hawaii for the West in 1778, they found sugar cane growing in the Kolo'a district. Kaua'i was the first island they set landfall on. So it goes back in history. Right. It just, it points out what an important crop it was for the people who originally populated the island. I mean, you choose a handful of things to bring with you. On a trip like that, you can't bring everything. They would not bring anything that wasn't really very important. There are heritage varieties of sugar cane on the island. Are you using them? And what do you think is distinctive about them? And obviously, this is a terroir driven rum of a place. And you've got sugar growing right there. And it's expressing in a certain way. What do you think is super unique about that? Well, we worked with a professor at the University of Hawaii, Department of Tropical Agriculture, to identify and curate 40 varieties of what is considered legacy cane that predate Western contact or that weren't developed by the sugar industry. And we have those. We are preserving them as a bank, a seed bank on Kaua'i. In addition to that, about five years ago, we began planting small amounts of cane that we will eventually use to make a rum. Right now, at our production output, we are not able to be totally dependent on sugar cane, so that's why we use sugar. What we're doing now is that, first, we're in the midst of an expansion program. We're building a new distillery. We'll have a new tasting room and company store, and we'll have a cafe on site and so forth. And this is on an 18-acre parcel. Three or four years ago, we had that, we call it the farm. We had that certified as an organic farm, and we have about two acres of sugar cane there now that's growing, and it's organic cane. Once the construction is built and all the equipment and everybody leaves, then we're going to plant out another eight to ten acres on that 18-acre parcel, and it will all be organic. And our plan then is to develop a Kolo'a single estate organic rum. Limited availability, but something very special. Where are you located right now in Kaua'i? We have our Tasting Room and Company store on the grounds of Kilohana Plantation, which is an old sugar plantation manager's estate right on the outskirts of Lihue. But our distillery is in the town of Kalaheo, which is on the south shore still, but west of Lihue by about 10 miles and four miles from Kolo'a. Well, it's interesting, geologically, there are eight major islands that comprise the Hawaiian islands. What people refer to as the big island, the island of Hawaii, is the southernmost, the largest, and it's still growing because it has an active volcano that's releasing lava as we speak. We're at the very northern end of the island, so we're 400 miles distance between them. So does that make it one of the older islands in the chain? Yeah, it's the old, Kaua'i is the oldest island geologically in the island chain. And we also get the most rainfall for whatever reason, the wind patterns are being what they are. And so Kaua'i is the most lush, the most green. Obviously, all the islands have volcanic soils to some extent, but because it's an older island and it's the garden island, is there a much thicker layer of topsoil? Yes, there is. Interesting. And that's one of the reasons why the sugar industry flourished in Kaua'i, and particularly on Kaua'i. So I have to say, I was pretty excited when I heard you were going to be stopping by because probably the best trip I've ever taken in my life was to Kaua'i. And I had the pleasure of being at this plantation, and it's something I'll never forget. Did the whole thing, did the package, or you got to take the train ride, and tried some of your rums. And it was amazing. And that's definitely how I was exposed to your rums. And I feel like there have to have been other travelers. I know Kaua'i is a big wedding destination, kind of more of the garden isle of the islands. And so if this name rings a bell, some of you vacationers might have tried the rum when you went there for that, but come for the poi, stay for the rum. Thank you for all of that. And you're exactly right. It's absolutely beautiful. And Kaua'i is called the garden isle for a reason. And if people haven't been there, you know, that should be one of your bucket list things to do. Couldn't agree more. Anytime people ask me about Hawaii, I go, this is the only place I've ever been where, not only does it live up to your expectations, it exceeds them. It's one of those things where it absolutely deserves, at least Kaua'i, all the recognition it gets. As you all know, we've been with Binny's in Chicago now for, gosh, going on 10 years. Yeah, it's crazy. Pretty interesting story about that. One day I get a call from somebody I had never heard of before, Brett, Brett somebody. That guy? He says, is this Kuala Rum? Of course, I'd heard that a million times. I said, well, first it's Kolo'a. But I gave Brett the story of Kolo'a. Then I asked, well, why are you interested? He said, well, we have people coming in our stores and asking for the product. I said, and you're in Chicago? Great, that's exciting. This was early on in our evolution, not maybe just a couple of years after we started. That was super exciting. Of course, Brett was very helpful in getting us placed and getting us distribution in Illinois. We have a very warm spot in our hearts for Binny's for sure. Thank you. I think if there's any one thing other than the quality of our product because no matter what, if you don't have a quality product, you're not going to make it. But second to that would be the fact that we had what was at the time Hawaii's first Distilled Spirits Tasting Room in the state, and we were the only one for about six or seven years. So from the beginning until now, we get 250 to 300 people per day. They come through there and they're coming from all over the world, and certainly all over from North America, Chicago. Smart move. I'm sure that is what explains the calls from Brett. Having the best time of their life, right? And that's right. People would come in. We didn't charge. We don't still to this day charge for tastings. It's free, and they try it, and most of them like it. Speaking of which. Yeah. I see the tops coming on, but the bottle is down. Brophy would have been screaming at all of us to stop talking and try the rum. Okay. It's probably time for us to walk through the rums. The ghost of Brophy. Hauntingness. So, what do you think as far as when we walk through this line up here? I would imagine we should maybe start from light to dark. Absolutely. Start with the white first, and then the gold, and then the dark, and so forth. The white is the base for everything that we do. It's the foundation of all of our products. Everything, of course, the still that comes out of the still is clear, and as you see, of course, our white rum is clear. We purposefully called it white because we didn't want to call it silver or platinum because there were too many other brands out there with those names, and so we thought Kaua'i White. One of our thoughts in the beginning, if you look at our labeling, it's all about Hawaii. None of us are rock stars or movie stars or anything like that. So we wanted to be true to the place where we all live and work and where this product is produced. And so we proudly put Kaua'i right up front on the labels. And then we have, in this case, the white, Kaua'i White, and then Kaua'i Gold, Kaua'i Dark and so forth. And it's just kind of something that we stuck with. And now it's our billboard. That's our brand. And if you look on the labels, you'll see the image of an old house. That's actually a pen and ink illustration of our tasting room at Kilo Hana Plantation. And our thought in that was that when people hopefully took a bottle or two back home with them from the tasting room and store, that they would look at that and say, hey, we were there. And, you know, just keep that connection. But people coming to Hawaii on vacation or for honeymoons or whatever, generally, it's a happy time. It's a, you know, it's a good time and, you know, things memories are made of. And so everybody's having a great time there. I remember I was standing next to this room and there was a cat sitting next to a chicken. Complete harmony. They're just chilling right by the tasting room. I've just recently had two friends visit Hawaii, one for a honeymoon, another for a vacation. They won't shut up about it. They keep sending photos. And now this, I feel like I'm being haunted by the idea of Hawaii. You gotta go. Yeah, the universe is saying something. You're being lured. Yeah, I've got FOMO now. This is a very nice, clean white rum. I imagine that the emphasis with this is cocktail driven, right? First of all, our core rums have always been and will remain fresh, meaning not aged. That's by design. The white rum is pure rum. Many people don't know that legally in the US, rum producers can produce rum and add up to 2% blenders to it and not have to declare it on the label. We do not add anything back to our distillate, the white rum, so it's just pure rum. It's 80 proof and you're right, it's very mixable. But part of the rationale or thinking strategy, I guess, in the beginning too, is that we wanted to develop our own style. We didn't want to go out and say, okay, well, we're going to be an agricole or we're going to do this or be like that brand. We wanted to just create our own style. Then, we evolved into flavors. Having that clean, pure, white rum as the base for that, allowed us to be able to mix these different flavor essences and compounds in a way that they really just came to life. You can't do that with aged rum, for example, and some other types. I'm just going to jump in and agree, there's a very, very clean rum, and it does exactly what I was thinking it was going to do. It doesn't taste anything like a rum agar coal. It doesn't have the character of a molasses-based rum. It's light on its feet. Yet, I find a really broad and expansive roasted pineapple and banana note that just lays on the palate for a long time. It is not by any means characterless. It has a lot of character, and it's very easy to drink straight. Yes, absolutely. One thing is that we distill twice. We come off the second pass at about 164 proof. And so that eliminates, removes a lot of the conjures and esters and other non-desirable characteristics. Well, let's try the coconut then. Is this base rum with coconut added to it? Yes. And it may say on the label it should, that it's all natural. So it passes muster with TTB and FDA, all natural flavor essences and compounds. And this was a real challenge for us to... The first product we made was the white rum, of course, and then the gold, and then the dark. And then we evolved from the dark to the spice, and then the coconut. But the coconut took us two years to really, you know, finalize the formula. We tried macerating fresh coconut. That was a disaster. There's way too much oil in coconut, and not all coconuts are created equal. Some are very sweet and fleshy and nice, and others taste like chalk. I don't know. And even though we have thousands or millions of coconut trees on Kaua'i, they're not always coming off at the same time. So put that out of the way. And so then we found a company that was distilling fresh young coconut for the cosmetic industry and perfumes. Ancient Egyptians were doing that 2,000 years ago. I've read distilling for cosmetics. Yeah, cosmetic pioneers, the Egyptians. Yeah, so this now, using this highly concentrated natural essence and compound, we can take minute amounts and build each batch that we do and get the consistency that we want and need from batch to batch. So if you don't buy it one day and it tastes and looks like this, and the next time it looks like that and tastes something different. It is explosively coconut-y. It is. I'm really enjoying it. It is one of our top sellers universally. Interestingly, in some places, you wouldn't expect it to be like we do really well with this in Chicago. People say, oh, this is a whiskey town. It may be. Probably my imagination, but I get notes of toasty coconut in it too. It almost reminds me, it has that custard-y approach like a coconut cream pie in the mouth. Well, and it is a little sweet, but... Like a coconut cream pie, I think it does have that fresh coconut and the toasted coconut. Exactly. Yeah. And almost a custard-y side to the flavor profile. It's pretty interesting. Interesting to sip. And I always encourage people, and in fact, in our tasting room, that's how we sample visitors, is having them taste it neat, each of our products, because we want people to know what the base tastes like. If you put it in a cocktail or mix it with something, you're getting all these competing flavors and whatnot. And so we're really proud to have people taste it, sample it, and eat, because that's... You need to know what you're getting. But they also make wonderful cocktails. Mojito, a coconut mojito, or daiquiri, pina colada, those... The lazy man's pina colada, this and pineapple juice. And the rocks. Yeah. That would be very good. I have a recommendation for this, so I have a bottle of this at home. And when I was on Kaua'i, I loved going to the fruit stands where you could get the pineapple smoothies that were just such a huge percentage of pineapple. Like so much... You were consuming so much pineapple that like the enzymes start like tickling your throat. It's like probably more pineapple. Marinating your uvula. Yeah, exactly. Like you normally would never sit down and eat this much pineapple, but just mixing enough ice to make a smoothie with fresh pineapple and then using this to give it a little liquidiness. It's so good. And again, it's kind of like a pina colada, but you don't have to mess around with the cream of coconut. It's such a good... And a lighter, fresher approach because you don't have that creamy... Yeah, there's not all that coconut fat in there, which is nice. This can be really rich. Well, sure. Exactly. This is brighter and lighter. Such a good rum. Yeah, really good. And it does... It feels rounder in the mouth, too, than just the straight white rum. Really good, though. It's so obvious why the base is so important here. It's interesting that you don't age at all because a lot of white rums are aged in oak and then charcoal filtered to have the color removed, and you just don't get any of that. And I think that contributes to the easy going, the lightness of the body and everything. Right. And that's something that we have to constantly respond to or react to when we're out sampling people and they ask, well, how long has this been aged? And we tell them, no, it's not aged, it's fresh. We do have an aged rum, of course, but and they say, oh, if it's not aged and it's not, it must not be good. Yeah. People, we have people who are a little kind of ageist around here. They're whiskeys. They think everything has to be old to be good. Yeah. But really, it all comes down to how it's made and what's in it, the ingredients. And so we're winning a lot of whisky drinkers over, like particularly with our spiced rum. A lot of whisky drinkers seem to gravitate to the spiced rum. But others, once they tasted it, we always hear the comment in our tasting room was, well, you know, I don't really like rum. I tried it before maybe back in college, and it wasn't good. I didn't have a good experience. And then they come in and they taste ours, and they go, my goodness, I didn't know rum could taste like this. Well, who had a good liquor experience in college? Come on. I don't know that there are dozens of good liquor experiences. Too many to count. Rum's never had its day. It's been so strange, and there have definitely been people beating the drum, and Edward Hamilton has been trying for years to get people to pay attention. And yeah, there's some amazing rums out there. And Barrel to Bottle is on that bandwagon like nobody's business. I think tiki cocktails suffer from the same type of thing too, is that when people think of tiki and tropical drinks, they always think of, oh, they're overly sweet. And if you make them correctly, it's going to be further from the truth. It's all about the quality of ingredients. And I think when you use fresh juices and balance enough acidity in there, and then use a really good rum, and especially a rum that's not dosed up with sugar, you're going to end up with something very different. So, your gold rum, I assume, another emphasis here is cocktails. This is another kind of mixer-centric rum. Right. And I mentioned in the beginning, the first three rums were the white and the gold and the dark. And then about every two years after we began, we would introduce another. And it would take us two years to develop the next flavor because it's a real painstaking, deliberative process to do that because we want to make sure that whatever we release is going to be really good. I mean, people are going to respond to and like. That's the reputation that I think we've established. But another thought in developing this pretty large portfolio for us is we have a white, gold, dark, spice, coconut, coffee, and now cacao, chocolate rum, and then the aged rums that we do. But we want to find something that... I joke around and say we have a rum for every day of the week. But we also have... Everybody has different tastes, different palate, and different preferences. And someone may not like our coffee rum. They don't care for coffee. And it's made from fresh coffee. But they like the coconut because they really like coconut. Or they like the dark because of the vanilla note, that kind of thing. So we want to appeal to as many people as possible. Well, if you're making some of these tropical, the iconic tropical drinks properly, a lot of them you need, that was the magic behind them, was blending different rums have different attributes. And a good Mai Tai should definitely have more than one rum in it. So I think I printed up your Mai Tai suggested recipe here. We should have got the ingredients here to make it. But it looks like it combines all three, white, gold and dark. If you've been skimping out on your Mai Tais and have been lazily using one type of rum, you're not fully enjoying what a Mai Tai can be. Well, the critical rum for Mai Tais is the dark rum, because that's the float on top. And what I like to point out to people is that you take a typical dark rum. I won't mention any brands out there, but if you make your cocktail and you pour the shot or whatever amount on the top, it will immediately go into solution, because of the lack of viscosity to it. But our dark rum, if you float that on top, it will immediately form a layer. I challenge you to do it, following the podcast. Challenge accepted. That layer will stay there until you stir it or drink it. And it's because of the natural viscosity in the product. And so, having the proper ingredients for the cocktails, you're right. That's critical. This gold is really nice. What's giving it the gold color? So we got a little... Caramelized sugar. Yeah. Just a touch. It was interesting to try it after the coconut because there's a little bit of coconut subtle. I mean, there even was on the white, but... I agree. I think there's an estuary component in all three of these that is kind of broad and somewhat tropical. I already stated, to me, it's like roasted fruits, like roasted banana, roasted pineapple, hint of coconut, and it's really pleasant. The gold is the base for the spice? Yes. So can you share the spices, or does it remain the word spice? The actual formula is locked in a safe, in a deep underground bunker on the island of Kauai. Cinnamon is prominent, and I will say that, as is nutmeg. You can really taste in that. We're big nutmeg believers on Barrel to Bottle. But, you know, the spice rum, like all of the flavors, was a challenge, too. And with every, what we found working with flavors is that with every degree of proof change, the flavor would change, and sometimes the aroma. You know, so we tried first at 70 on the low end, which is where Captain morgan is, went up to 92. In fact, I think I went up to 101, and then bit down to 92 where another brand is. And we ended up at 88 because we thought that's exactly where the flavors really popped, and sort of married, came together best. So we ended up at 88 proof. Good enough for time travel, good enough for your rum. Right. It's weird how that works. I once talked to a wine maker 20 years ago or something, and he came out of the food science industry. So he like developed flavors and stuff. So he's really a tinkerer when it came to his wines, really, really strange approach to wine making, because he'd make the wine and then he would de-alcoholize it and do all these strange things. Not something I would recommend for everyone, but he had this theory that just a small change in alcohol percentage made a huge difference in the way you perceived aromas and flavors. And he liked to just try to dial that in through science. Really interesting. I think this is nice. The caramelized sugar really comes out in this. Definitely supports that brown spice flavor nicely. This is a perfect example too. I remember the first time that I bored this for someone. I'm sure you've had to deal with this is that, I have a friend who's a big rum fan, kind of geeks out on it. And when I showed him this, he goes, a spiced rum, really? That's kind of what spiced rum has going against it, right? It's just so many people don't really think much of it. They think it's overly sweet. So this really is different. This is worth your time and attention. You can tell that some care went into making this blend. Yeah. I mean, it tastes like real cinnamon and real nutmeg. I did a lot of Admiral Nelson and Coke in my college years, and this would have been a much more welcome, elevated version of that had I known about it back then. Had you known. Producer Jim is tasting along, and he noticed the tasting note here that once he said it, I think he kind of nailed it. We have a running gag here that we'd like to mention a somewhat unknown fruit that I'm sure you actually have heard of, jackfruit. Oh, yes. So, this is kind of the jackfruit, juicy fruit bubblegum kind of inexplicable tropical flavor melange is something that we're big fans of. We notice it in a lot of today's craft beers, but I kind of pick up on that, Jim. Good call. Yeah. I've had a lot of people ask if there was sarsaparilla in it. Some people get this kind of root beerish kind of a- I understand that. I also think what it reminds me of as a childhood memory, which I always like to bring my childish things into alcohol tasting, is a brown sugar and cinnamon pop tart. Yes, the best flavor of pop tart. It almost has a pastry-like flavor to it, and the brown sugar and cinnamon is really- The thing that I was going to say is pineapple upside down cake is one of my favorite desserts, and I get some of that like the caramelized pineapple to here. This would be great rum to put in your banana's foster, or jackfruit foster if you want to pick it up a notch. It's a thing. I've made it. Of course, yeah. All right. Without further ado, let's get to the dark because I think if you are asking people if you've heard of Kolo'a Rum, it's probably your dark rum that I think a lot of people have tried and has made quite an impression. Tell us a little bit about what the process was like to- Well, it was part of the original three rums that we launched. So it's been around, been in the market from the beginning for us. So a lot of people have had the opportunity to try it. What comes out first, at least to me, when I knows it or can taste it, of course, is the vanilla. It has a very bold vanilla note right up front. And that comes from Tahitian vanilla. We also add caramelized sugar, again, for color. But, and I mentioned earlier about the float effect that you get on a tropical cocktail. But it is very distinctive and I think unique and different than most other dark rums that I've tried. Overall, it's our best seller universally, followed closely by the coconut and in some markets, the coffee and it just depends from market to market. But the dark rum is the foundation for the brand out there. And there's so many uses. And I mentioned earlier that I brought you folks a hand-carried on the plane rum cake. None for you, Pat. Made by one of our good baker friends on Kaua'i. That's awesome. Should we try some with this rum? Well, it's made with the dark rum. I think we have to. Yeah. Is this a question here? Now, if you want to layer some more rum on top of it, by all means, on Kaua'i, visitors to our store get a sample of the rum cake. And of course, we have it for sale on our company store website. But it's a lovely cake and made fresh almost daily on Kaua'i. The dark rum is used there. But the point I was going to make too is that we have a lot of chefs that are using the dark rum in desserts and other things. That makes a lot of sense to me because just the aroma profile of this is so distinctive. And I would venture to say that Tahitian vanilla is very distinct from like Madagascar vanilla. It's very floral and bold. It's an excellent packaging, I can attest. This is not going to break in shipment. But I think that was a wise choice here and really pops. Maybe it's because I've had the coffee, little bottle sitting next to the dark rum this whole time. But I get a little bit of a subtle coffee note. Oh, it definitely is, for sure. I think that's coming from the vanilla, from the bean. That's the difference with real vanilla. It has that earthiness that comes through. Yeah, there's some real complexity here. It has that round nutty coffee flavor for sure. We have a farmer friend, in fact, the source of our cacao beans that we used to make our chocolate rum, who is growing vanilla now and is expanding his acreage. We're going to be working with him to see if we can incorporate his vanilla. Really, that's something else that we have been doing from the beginning is to try to use as many locally sourced agricultural ingredients from Hawaii in our products. And as Jenna mentioned, the coffee rum, the coffee is sourced from Kaua'i Coffee Company, which is on Kaua'i. Excellent place, went there too. 3,700 acres of coffee. Very well respected coffee industry in Hawaii. And it shows in the nose of the coffee rum. Well, yes, and what they do is they give us a special roast and grind, and we do a cold brew in the distillery, and then blend it with our white rum, and add just a touch of cane sugar and round it out. So it's real coffee with Kolo'a rum, and so it's not just some flavors thrown together. So you get that aroma, you get that nose, and then of course the taste is just right there. Well, I can say the cake and the rum together are pretty nice. Yes. The cake and the coffee rum are... That's really good. But I can taste... I ate some Trace Leche's cake yesterday, and I want to douse my cake just as much as that was. Make it that liquidy. Wow. Excellent as is. Let's try out the little extra rum. Yep. Try out some of the coconut. You didn't think this was going to turn into a cake tasting, did you? Well, it came a long way for you to have a slice. Yeah, we appreciate that. We should try the coffee next. Have you guys already tried the coffee? I doused my entire piece in the coffee, and it was amazing. Kaua'i Coffee Company is the largest coffee farm in the US. I mentioned 3,700 acres. Their coffee fields are about three or four miles from our distillery. So it's a pretty short trip when they do the roast and grind. They bring it right over, and we do the cold brew and blend our white rum. And like I said, I had a little bit of cane sugar just to round it out. But people are very often pleasantly surprised when they get a hint of that aroma and then taste it. My answer always is, well, I mean, it's coffee. If you like coffee and you like rum, you can't get it any better. It's dangerous. It's pretty delicious. I mean, a lot of people don't really realize this. I think for years, Kolo'a wasn't really labeled with rum because I remember when they did that label change, people kept coming up and saying, I don't want the Kolo'a with rum in it. I want normal Kolo'a. But so if you're unaware, Kolo'a is the most famous, probably coffee liqueur is made with rum. So if you're a fan of Kolo'a and other coffee liqueurs, this is going to give you a similar experience, but I think an elevated one since it's not as cloyingly sweet. Or viscous. And the coffee flavor and aroma is just next level. Yeah, it's a knockout. Dead on coffee. One point of distinction is that Kolo'a is, as you mentioned, is a liqueur. It's 42 proof. Ours, our coffee rum is 68 proof. So it's not a full rum at 80 proof, but 68 is still pretty substantial bump in the alcohol. And so that I think affects the flavor. And there's some caramelized sugar in here too, to boost the sweetness a little bit. Yeah, it's delicious. Very good. I also think it's the winner for adding some to your cake. Indeed. It's unbelievable. I mean, if you like tiramisu. Right? Wow, it's like Hawaiian tiramisu. Holy cow, is that good. I still have a puddle on my plate from how much I put on my cake. So that probably makes some really cool cocktails too. I would imagine people are having some fun mixing, because some tiki drinks will incorporate chocolate and coffee where you wouldn't expect it. It's not just, though, you put it in your coffee type of. Espresso martini. I was just going to say you could do a twist with an espresso martini, but this would be delicious. And I think, literally, Roger, I think you hit on something. You could cut this cake up and make a tiramisu and douse it in the coffee liqueur. Man, that would be good with mascarpone. Now I want to do that. Or just drink it. I would just drink this. Really, really good. Or just drink it. Yeah. What came first as far as the cocoa is the newest, the cacao or? The cacao. Yeah. Yeah. That's been out about a year and a half now. And as I mentioned, it's made with locally grown kawaii cacao that we sourced from a fifth generation kawaii farming family, the Lidgates. They take the cacao bean, they roast it, and then bring it to us. And we macerate the cacao in our white rum for a minimum of 10 days. The rum will pull out, leach out the color and flavor. And so that's the natural flavor derived from the, from the cacao, the roasted cacao. What's interesting is, and then of course we blend it down to bottle strength, add just a touch of cane sugar and bottle it at 80 proof. Then we take the rum soaked cacao beans, give them back to the Lidgate folks, and they then process that and produce a rum flavored chocolate. Cool. Wow. That's awesome. So it goes full circle in terms of value added product. I mean, I will just say that the nose here is very complex because you get all the things that you would expect out of high-quality cacao, which is an earthy, deep chocolate aroma, but then there are those higher tone fruit notes that you get in Throw out your creme de cacao. Creme de cacao. When you look at creme de cacao, normally most of what's on the market is using a very plain, neutral brandy-based spirit. I mean, there's just no character there. Right. And it can shine through in a way that's unpleasant, just kind of that plain alcohol note, and you don't get any of that here. Not only that, those are often relatively cloying. This has just enough sugar to hold it together, and you get the bitter notes of chocolate. So dark chocolate lovers will like this. It really shows you all the sides of cacao beans all at once. Very complicated. Also just seems like an absolute must-try mixed with the coffee rum. I feel like that's just... What am I waiting for? Again, with the rum cake too. Yes. Unbelievable. Super cool. Like when you put them together, those higher-toned fruit notes from the cacao float on top, and then you get that base note of the coffee coming through, it's in the nose. It's really good. I mean, I think that is one of the greatest joys of visiting Hawaii, is trying all the local produce. Visiting any farmer's market I could find, any chance to try local was just such an amazing difference of quality, and I think that's shining through here. These have all been phenomenal. Just amazing rums that people really need, especially like you were saying, people that think they don't like rum. There really is a rum for every taste here. Time of day, I could see a lot of these being great brunch options for making yourself cocktails earlier on. Then it looks like you brought something special for us here. This is an age expression then. It is. What we're offering now is our five-year single barrel. This one is, let me see, this one came out at 120.31 proof. It's a minimum five years. We have about, I think, 370 barrels aging now in our rick house at different age points. We're waiting to get our new distillery and warehouse completed so that we can expand our aging program. We're pretty much maxed out now at about 370. Is the temperature controlled or are you letting it? Mother Nature. I was wondering because with humidity there, is it relatively high? You say you get a lot of rainfall and rain is kind of a daily thing, right? Humidity generally is not too high because of trade winds. Oh, yeah. That makes sense. Sort of like a natural air conditioner. So we have trade winds blowing 10 months out of the year. Occasional, system will come through and we'll have some humidity. But it's interesting in the daytime in our warehouse, which has a metal roof, the barrels are where we stacked four high on racks. Up at the top, it'll get to be 90 degrees or close to 100 degrees, just some radiant heat from the metal roof. Then at night, it'll drop back down sometimes to the mid 60s. So are you finding you lose more spirit in the higher barrels? Yes. Interesting. Where are you sourcing the wood from? What's your oak machine here? Once you use bourbon barrels that we get exclusively from Heaven Hill in Kentucky. Cool. We want to make sure we use the same barrel that's had the same product in it so that there's some degree of consistency. Now, we are thinking that when we get to the new distilleries and have more room and perhaps more time to experiment, that we might try finishing in a port barrel or something else just to see what we get. But we don't like to stray too far from really what we do. It's nice to experiment and say, well, what if we tried this? What would that look like? But we think that this... And we actually have rum now that's in the barrel that's six years. We have, I think, eight barrels, which is not a lot. And we'll have more that will eventually become six and seven years. And we want to let it go to the point that we get diminishing returns, either losing too much through evaporation, or it just becomes a little bit overly toasted, woody. I think that at some point we'll reach that. I've always heard, and I'm sure you folks have too, that aging in tropical environments is accelerated. Right. And I think that there's something to that, because the alcohol, which is very reactive to its environment, is pretty much in an expanded state most all the time, because of the warm temperatures, which I think up to this point, at five years and we're looking at six years, is still very favorable. So we'll just have to see over time how that works. I mean, this expresses is very rich and spicy, and loads of wood lactones, I like, very vanilla oriented. It's not cold-filtered. It's just drained the barrel. We filter for sediment, of course, little bits of charcoal, get that out of there, and then bottle it at whatever the proof it comes out at. We typically go in the barrel at around 124 proof. That came out at 121. But it's still very smooth, very clean, I think. I think this is a key differentiator here, is that it's a barrel-proof rum, which is a rarity. I mean, that's something that you really do not see as often, and it's really cool to be able to like with any barrel strength, cast-strength spirit, dial it in to your liking. You can never go the other direction, right? So unfortunately, a lot of rums have been watered down to the 80 proof, but this gives you the rare chance to try it as is. Yeah. Put it on a few ice cubes made with a little slice of lime, and let it do its thing, and that sounds good to me. Yeah. This definitely too is something that a bourbon drinker needs to try. Yeah, for sure. Because the bourbon is here. You definitely can taste the bourbon influence, and it gives it those classic, the vanilla, as you pointed out, is there. That white American oak is really shining through. Yeah. Some old spice notes. And yeah, those those spicy and vanilla notes are exactly what we were talking about in earlier expressions of the rum. So it's very synergistic. I mean, it just makes perfect sense. I agree. Wow. What a line up of rums. All right, now we need to ask you another thing we talk about all the time on this podcast. Pog. We love Pog. Why is there no Pog? If you ever come back, we're gonna make you smuggle us Pog. Well, Pog, of course, is passion. Orange and guava juice, which is our state drink, I guess, for breakfast. For breakfast every morning. Orange juice section is really small and off to one end, and then you got this huge Pog section, but seriously, it goes together well, but it's the base of our rum punch. I was just gonna say. We have a line of RTDs, which I unfortunately didn't bring with me today, but a quick story about the rum punch is that the first RTD, the ready-to-drink cocktail that we produced was a Mai Tai, because we had the dark rum from the beginning in the white and gold, so we made the Mai Tai. And then Hawaiian Airlines, which is our flagship airlines in Hawaii, came to us and said, look, we want to rebrand our in-flight service and try to incorporate as many locally sourced food products and ingredients and whatnot. Could you make us a signature cocktail that we could serve on board? And we said, sure. And what are you looking for? And they said, well, we'd like a pod-based cocktail. Brilliant. We said, okay. So we set about formulating these different prototype samples and sending the samples over to them and we get feedback and direction. And then finally, we nailed it to their satisfaction. And for the past almost 10 years, they've been serving our rum punch as a complimentary cocktail on board all of their domestic and international flights. That's awesome. That's very cool and very rare these days. As a complimentary cocktail? Yeah. Sit down and shut up. So we've had a wonderful relationship with Hawaiian. That was the beginning of the rum punch, which is the Pog based product. And then since then, we've added what we call pineapple passion. And we're just now releasing, doing a soft release of our line of sparkling canned cocktails in four flavors, guava, mango, pineapple and coconut. Okay. Low in alcohol, four and a half percent, 130 calories per 12 ounce can. Very light, very refreshing. Perfect for the beach, for boating, for out by the pool. Wow. Kind of thing. So that's exciting. And we'll have to see how that goes. We're just in the beginning stages of getting that out to market. Is that something that you're, for the flavors on those, I'm sure it's a challenge to keep it that low in calories with juice. Oh no, we are using juice. That's absolutely nice. That, I think, is the future of the, we taste through so many different seltzers and RTDs. And seltzer wise, the real standouts are the ones that use juice. And if you need to hit that 100 calorie mark, if you're following a diet that close, God bless you. But if you can use real juice for 30 more calories, the difference is always. And that is why we didn't hit 100 calories. Is that we could not get the flavor that we needed. And so, you know, and for a while with seltzers, it was all about 100 calories. And so we just said, no, it's going to be 130. But it's real juice. And it's all natural. Each of the four flavors are all natural. There's no artificial ingredients at all. Fantastic. That's great. Well, now I really want to go back to Hawaii. I guess until then, at least I have this awesome lineup of rums. I think that is definitely the proof is in people returning and wanting, seeking out your products because they really do leave a lasting impression that this is something that's a standout. These are really excellent rums and the flavored rum category can be pretty tricky. A lot of times, there's not a lot of nice things to say. With some of them and this is proves that you can make exceptional versions of that. So I hope more and more people get a chance to try these. We're going to keep singing their praises here at Binny's. So what else is new? Is there anything you can hint at as far as RTDs are probably your main focus, but is there a new flavor that you think is going to appear? I mentioned I think earlier in our conversation that we're looking at developing a single estate organic rum. Okay, right. So we're working on that now, maybe a year and a half to two years out from having that ready to go to market. We are working on four other RTD cocktail flavors, have no idea when they're going to be released. Timing is really important on that kind of thing, but we also have a couple of rums, flavored rums in the pipeline when it's time. How about a boozy shave ice syrup? Oh yeah. I really miss shave ice. That was another thing I loved in Hawaii. Yeah. A little sweetened condensed milk on there. Yeah. In Hawaii, we do have some of the on-premise accounts bars at the resorts that are doing that now, actually having shave ice and using Kolo'a Rum. Makes perfect sense. Very cool. Yeah. It would have melted by the time I got it here or so. I can't believe you didn't bring us any. Thanks so much for bringing this awesome lineup of rums. It was a pleasure meeting you, pleasure trying all these. Yeah. I'll second that. Delicious lineup. Thank you. Yes. Very good. Thank you. As we've said many times before, rum is the most underappreciated spirit on the shelf, so get out there and try some rums. Until next time, we encourage you to download Barrel to Bottle, on your favorite podcast platform of choice. Tell your friends, tell your family. I am Roger. I'm Jenna. And I'm Chris. And I'm Bob. Aloha.