Dad Bods Assemble: The secret origins of The 45 Scottish Spiced Rum (Part 1.1)

The 45 Rum movement was started by a group of long-standing friends who met through a shared interest in socialising and sport. But we’re also interesting, funny and quite humble…
Among our number are engineers, an entrepreneur, company directors, Pharma Sales and media sales, a bar owner and a journalist. So, just like you, well cool.
We like to think we share the profile of those who will drink our Rum. We see ourselves as outgoing, adventurous and open-minded. Occasionally one or more of us does something interesting or says something funny. Our closest friends, family and admirers see us as an assembly of dad bods who will find any excuse to meet or have a drink together. They are right.
Any parallels between us and the Jacobites are very minimal at best so we think this should be clear. We won’t die if we get things wrong, hopefully, even if at one stage in the early development of our product we wondered whether that was a possibility.
Like our predecessors’ movement, ours too has founding figures – but they’re more like a big brother than a Bonnie Prince (thankfully, we think).
What we share with the people of The 45 is a commitment to what we have decided to do. It’s irresistible- regardless of how potentially insane. We are loyal to a vision that things can be changed for the better - something worth fighting, and making rum for.
But in truth, we genuinely like this idea; no matter which side of history you favour, which path you take, your actions can be bound by a common trait: loyalty.
For people who like rum and other spirits, we hope this is exciting news. We are bringing something new and authentic to the table, both as a company and in our product.
The 45 is a flavoursome spirit and we think you should also say this word out loud: Flavoursome. It’s not just a word reserved for the Ross Gellers or Oxo Commercials of this world. We needed it to have a distinct identity to match our grand Jacobite metaphor and it has; its spices and botanicals infuse a twist of wild Scotland in its uniquely nectarous, strong taste. Yes, we actually said “nectarous” and here’s a link to the definition, so it’s a real word!

What does this mean to the average drinker? A, it’s not bulky like beer - it’s compact and neat. 2, it’s not hard like whisky - it’s smooth and slightly sweet but still edgy. And D, it’s not floral like gin - it’s robust and substantial yet fantastically tangy and warm.

If there is one other thing that we have in common with the noble warriors of The 45, it is that we don’t know where our journey will take us… and we’re Scottish and almost completely out of our depth most days. But we will always be clear-eyed about why we set out on it.

We are asking you to join our movement. Dare to be different. Share the Spirit of Rebellion.

What goes with spiced rum? Rum and Tonic...yes, really

As the last few days tick away until The 45 Spiced Rum is shipped, we’ve been sharing some cocktails and some other ideas for drinking our rum. This one might surprise you but we urge you to give it a go, particularly if you find yourself drinking a Gin and Tonic now and again.


Adding Tonic to spirits other than Gin is more common around the world than you might think. A classic, refreshing summer drink of Cognac and Tonic is served very often in France over ice with a slice of Lemon. They call it a Cognac Long. It tastes fantastic.

It is with this in mind that we urge you to get some spiced rum and tonic into your drinking repertoire.

It’s this simple:

Pour a good shot of The 45 Spiced Rum over ice into a glass. Add a slice of tangerine or orange, add a nice tonic of your choice. Enjoy.

A perfect, Scottish Spiced rum cocktail recipe: The 45 Sidecar

We are always looking for great ideas for cocktails and ways to drink our rum. In all honesty, we’re quite taken with it straight, over ice. The spice, sweetness and finishing really comes through and that 45% ABV gives it such a warming finish. But we also love a cocktail.

The famous sidecar is usually made with Cognac, Orange Liqueur and lemon juice. The 45 Sidecar takes things on a bit and spices things up. It’s great for Christmas drinks but you’ll love this drink at any time- ask for it the next time you’re out or make your own with our recipe below.


The 45 Sidecar

1oz The 45 Spiced, Scottish Rum

3/4 oz Cognac

3/4 oz Orange Liqueur

Squeeze of fresh lemon juice (or use orange if you want that sweeter profile)

Shake over ice, serve in a cocktail martini glass with a twist of orange.

We all owe a debt to gin (but we’ve paid it off!)

Our resident researcher and communications director, Michael has some thoughts on why we’re making rum. And they can be quite insightful!

Before the gin-inspired craft spirits boom, the drinks industry and the way spirits were consumed were very different to the way they are now. 

Whether savoured straight as an acquired taste (a single malt or fine cognac) or diluted with a rigidly associated mixer (gin and tonic, rum and coke), there was little thought given to trying something new. 

Some sample a different brand, maybe – but few drinkers of spirits would venture beyond their tried and tested way to enjoy their favourite drink.  

We sometimes, without realising, wore a badge that everyone knew was “your drink”. 

And there’s nothing at all wrong with that. Tried and tested sounds way better than tried and regretted, after all.

Some of us remember this limited choice and big-name brands only approach. Of course, we always had a broad choice in some things here in Scotland with our Whisky distilleries but even they went through a big-brand consolidation in the latter half of the 20th century. So many are now part of the multi-national drinks companies that swallowed up every type of booze they could get hold of, like that one friend that will literally drink anything at a party...   

As for brand loyalty, well, the big boys worked hard to ensure we stuck with them. From international marketing campaigns to localised promotions, we knew what we liked. It was a hard thing to change.

Same brand, same mix, same experience. Who can really blame them - it worked!

Regardless, our love of the spirit has continued to grow

The times they are a-changing and it’s good for you and good for us! The huge expansion of the craft spirit market has brought different options to what is a vastly increasing number of spirits consumers. Odds are, if you’re reading this you’re already a regular consumer of Spirit. And we all know which one is almost always top of the list! 


Gin has evolved. From the old-ladies' ruin to the modern drinker’s sophistication, it’s all there! In its many reinvented forms and flavours, it is as often drunk with just ice or as part of a cocktail, without the need for a tonic. And of course, we’ve all now entered into the “craft mixer” market - fancier and more botanical tonics, lemonades, colas. And we applaud them all - they have changed the game and it is for the better! 

Now, there is a new player on the scene which is making the market its own. We have picked up the baton from the Gin pioneers and are running a completely new race…too many sports metaphors? So, here's some facts for you:

Rum sales in the UK passed the £1billion mark in 2018 for the first time ever – an increase of 7.5% on the previous year. In 2019, the taste for Rum is set to change altogether - from a White Rum being top of the list to Spiced Rum leading the way into 2020. There's a clear pattern here and we have hardly scratched the surface.

Have you been to the bar recently and sighed? We have and we’re fairly committed to getting to a bar. We have seen it and we have felt it. As rum’s versatility becomes better known and gin fatigue (yes, we are calling it that) prompts more and more drinkers to try a new product, there is an opportunity for something different to come to the fore. (Cue fanfare.)

Step forward The 45 – a delicious spiced rum which tastes as great on the rocks as it does in adventurous cocktails and many more mixers than rum’s traditional partner, cola. We’ve tried it with everything you can imagine. It works and it’s definitely spicing things up.  

(By the way, if rum and coke is your thing, you should sample our spirit with a craft cola and we guarantee you’ll find your favourite drink has just got better.)

We are delighted to be offering you a traditionally-manufactured product with an authentic back story and identity – which we’ll tell you more of in later blogs. We’ve worked hard to keep things craft. This is hand-made by friends who have learned together.  

What’s really exciting is that the interest of you, our audience, and other potential rum consumers is already piqued. We’re on a journey together. 

This is a real rebellion and it is only just beginning. We’d like to invite you to join the journey from its outset. Forward The 45! 

Scottish, Craft Spirits: Making rum a part of your life


Euan loves rum: Chief Technology Officer explains it all

As mentioned in our previous blog post, we started developing our rum ambitions early in 2019. However, my interest began a few months earlier when I attended a rum tasting event in Glasgow.

I’d always been a fan of dark rum and coke, or a Cuba Libre, but had never taken it beyond the mainstream rum brands… you know the ones. 

Rum had always been a spirit I would drink in irregular bursts - I would order it for weeks on end, then leave it for a similar amount of time. I knew I liked it, but often forgot about it.

The Tasting evening was great, not just from a tasting perspective, but was also really informative about the process of making, flavouring and ageing rum, which I found really interesting.

By having the opportunity to sample rums made from different raw materials, different parts of the world and different backgrounds, it quite quickly became clear how many variations there were, and how the craft rums were much more to my taste.

As the evening progressed I was messaging the rest of the Jacobite team telling them A). How boozed I was getting on all the rum they were giving us,  2). how the process of making it was much more interesting than I’d previously thought and D) how boozed I was getting on all the rum.

Later that week I had purchased 2 of the amazing rums I had tasted, with an excellent ginger beer which I now believe is a must if you’re looking for a strong mixer to stand up against the sweet and spicy flavours of The 45.

Fast-forward a few months, and we’re all sat in an office in Govan discussing a new idea Jamie and Tony had been working on, which quickly became Jacobite Spirits.

In a follow-on blog, I’ll give you some insight to how we’re using “First Fill” Scotch Whisky barrels to add colour and flavour to our Scottish, Spiced Rum.

After that, I will most likely cover the intricacies of a mechanised bottling process, from a Kaizen and LEAN manufacturing perspective, obvs. But I’m also here to answer any technical questions.


The origin of the Jacobite Spirits

The 45: brotherhood at the heart of Jacobite Spirits

How it all began? 

The hardest part of telling this tale is working out how far back to go. The real beginning is so much further back but we will start where it makes sense, a voyage of discovery.

We, 8 friends love to travel.  Euan, Jamie, Marcus, Michael, Pat, Ronnie, Stevie and Tony.  Together, we have seen much of the world- not always as a group of 8 but regularly as a variable sum of our parts.  There’s not much of the world that hasn’t seen one of the Jacobite Spirits team.  In fact, we asked and other than the 2 frozen poles, we have most of the world covered. 

We have a diverse background- not one of us has a career or expertise in the same sector.  This has been helpful given that none of us had any experience of making rum.  But, yes folks, some of you are ahead already here, we do have a shared appreciation of all things alcohol.  For us, it is a regular source of “discovery” on our journeys around the world! 

From drinking buddies to distilling buddies

So, late in 2018, as our shared interest and participation in sport that brought us together as friends and directed us to booze/pubs and international travel was waning we hit upon an idea to bring us together in an enterprise.

Luckily, as the “Mum and Dad” of the group, Jamie and Tony had already been researching just such an opportunity.  By the start of 2019 the idea to produce Rum was underway.  

After much discussion and debate, Jacobite Spirits was born with Rum planned as the first product.  Why rum? This was simple- everyone else was doing Gin and we felt that so much of the “Craft Gin” market was a bit inauthentic.  Our Rum project wasn’t really anything other than trying something new and starting on a journey of discovery- and that’s what happened.

Why Jacobite Spirits? 

There’s a lot to this but at the heart is a spirit of rebellion that we feel we share.  The Jacobites were a diverse group of Scots and allies from around the world who gathered around a cause - they believed in working together to achieve something better. We share that Spirit of Rebellion - the knowledge that things can be done differently.  And so we set off on our journey of discovery with a brand we felt was Scottish but also international.  The 45 is our first Rum and commemorates the end of one rebellion and the start of another. 

The Rum Shack! 


By late spring we had researched the process and ordered our first still.  We had experimented with flavour profiles and of course, sampled a LOT of other rum, which was surprisingly insightful.  There’s a lot happening with Rum.  We knew what we liked and we also wanted to keep as much of this an authentic Scottish product.  

In June this year we were awarded our License and the real work began.  

We built a modest distillery- in a hidden location, of course, and the Jacobite Spirits Rum shack shook into action.  Our rum, The 45, is finished in a bourbon and whisky cask- bringing together that spirit of journey, and to an extent, the spirit of rebellion!  We are still building our operation but are excited to start the next phase of our journey together- and to bring you with us! 

  

How do you drink spiced Rum?

 

This is not a stupid a question as we first thought it. We have grown so familiar with some drinks- from the new craft beers that have hit the taps over the past few years to the gin explosion- honestly, who is not making Gin? I bet you’re already making Gin…we’re not making Gin.

We even know that the options for the mixer have grown by so much- everyone’s on a craft this or that, tonic added is just dull these days.


So, what do you do with a Scottish Spiced Rum? Well, that’s a bloody good question, finally. The answer, as you’d imagine, is not that simple. You can actually do quite a lot. So, in the interests of covering a few bases and as an homage to the late, Bubba (Forest Gump), we’ll do a list:

How to drink The 45 Spiced Rum

Straight up:

In a glass with a big ice cube, add a tiny splash of water and a twist of orange peel. Game ON! This is serious- you will taste everything we have in there.

With a mixer:

We recommend expanding your mind away from a Coke but if you want that, please try something with a bit more punch than that stuff that comes out of the gun at the bar. Get a cola that has something in there- yes, a craft cola but you could, at a push, use a flavoured coke…even cherry!

A great, classic mixer for rum is Ginger Beer and that is fantastic. It will really accentuate the ginger in ours though so be careful!

Think about a Limonata (that fancy lemonade). This is great and works well with some fruit in the glass.

As part of a cocktail:

Sooooooooo many choices here but there are some that might surprise you. An Old Fashioned is really great with our spiced rum. Same everything else, just swap out the Bourbon for spiced Rum and you’re onto a winner.

Another surprise is in a Bloody Mary- swap out the vodka and use the rum. The sweet and spice really livens it up.

A champagne cocktail can also handle this- add your sugar, bitters and a splash of rum, top up with sparkling wine of your choice (no, that does not include lambrini ladies…).

So, there’s some ideas, but the most important first step is: get a bottle of The 45 Spiced Rum and make your life much better!

 

BE PREPARED TO BE INSPIRED BEYOND YOUR WILDEST BLOG DREAMS

 

Does anyone read blogs anymore? We don’t but we are happy to write some stuff here for the real hardcore out there.

We made Rum because we know everyone needs it in their lives (responsibly…whatever). If you like to know about your drinks, to understand how they are made and what goes into them then a spiced rum is a great way to start. We’ve done it from the very beginning- we have experimented with spices, botanicals and also with our method.

Our first Still was incredibly badly made- we didn’t even use it but we had fun trying to send it back across eastern Europe. We learned that drinking “home hooch” in some eastern European countries is definitely taking a chance!

So, we will likely update here with news- about our bottling, our cask…oh, the cask. Seriously, the smell of the cask. One day you need to get along to smell the cask.

 

Rum can be alluring, read this blog post to find out how.

 

Why do you want to be alluring? I don’t think it’s something you can set out to be, you either are alluring or not. Don’t try to drink rum for any other reason than you want to drink a strong, excellent drink and do something a bit different to the crowd.

And anyway, you’re weirding me out asking about rum being alluring. It is alluring though, so don’t ask again, just be allured.