Rum Fire Cocktails

Rum Fire - The perfect rum for exotic cocktails

Rum Fire is fast becoming the rum of choice for cocktails. Already known throughout Europe for its High Esters,  it's exceptionally smooth and with bold flavors is fast becoming an industry exclusive. The poster below is taken from one of Rum Fire's recent bar hopping cocktail extravaganza. The word is "THIS saturday people and word from our mixologist is that the cocktails gonna be on fire". 

Rum Fire Racing Invitational

Crack Field For Rum Fire Invitational

Published: Wednesday | September 14, 2011

With the magnificent Rum Fire Trophy in the foreground, Ruth Hussey (left), matriarch of the Hussey family, share thoughts with her granddaughter Christelle Harris (centre), director of marketing at Everglades Farms Limited, and CTL's CEO Camile Buchanan, at Monday's launch of the Rum Fire Raceday at the Terra Nova Hotel. - Rudolph Brown/ Freelance Photographer

Orville Clarke, Gleaner Writer

The racing calendar will facilitate another major sponsored race with the inaugural running of the Rum Fire Invitational Trophy over 1500 metres for grade one horses at Caymanas Park on Saturday, September 24.

Plans for the Rum Fire Raceday, sponsored by the Everglades Farms Limited, which is owned by the Hussey family, were outlined by representatives of the sponsors and Caymanas Track Limited (CTL) at Monday's launch at the Terra Nova All Suite Hotel, Waterloo Road.

The race, which offers a whopping purse of $2 million, inclusive of $900,000 from Everglades, will see the best horses in the country vying for top honours, and anticipation is high among racing fans that it's worth going miles to see.

Probable starters
According to CTL's racing secretary, Denzil Miller Jr, the probable starters include top-rated RONRON, DANCE SO SWEET and NIPHAL from the stables of Gary Subratie, reigning 'Horse of the Year' MARK MY WORD, the brilliant unbeaten three-year-old gelding COMMANDING CHIEF, champion sprinter SAINT CECELIA, the super fit Canadian mare PRICELESS BEAUTY, not to mention the Wayne DaCosta-trained trio of CASSANOVA BOY, SIR VON, LITTLE WASP and RAISE A RUCKUS.

In addition to the Rum Fire Invitational race, the supporting feature will be the Rum Fire Dash for native-bred two-year-olds over 1100 metres for a purse of $1.2 million, inclusive of $400,000 from Everglades; the Rum Fire Trailblazer for native-bred maiden two-year-olds over 1100 metres for a purse of $815,000; the Hampden Legacy over $1200 metres for overnight allowance horses with a purse of $865,000; as well as the Rum Fire Zinger, Rum Fire Chiller, Rum Fire Bomber, Rum Fire Claimer and Rum Fire Mixer races over varied distances, all in receipt of contributions from Everglades.

Riders from the us
To add to the day's excitement, five overseas-based riders from Mountaineer Park in the United States will match skills against their local counterparts. They are former three-time champion, Jamaican Andrew Ramgeet, Deshawn Parker, Sophie Richgels, Luis Revira and José Davila.

Meanwhile, Everglades, in association with CTL, will stage a Gimmick Race for polo ponies over 300 metres, named the O.T.B. race. Proceeds will go to the Christelle Harris Foundation and Basic School in Trelawny.

The ponies will be ridden by owners, trainers and breeders, as well as noted equestrians such Susan Wates, Mitta Rousseau and Paul Lalor, joined by Gary Subratie, Anthony Nunes, Roger Newman, Fitzroy Glispie, Tensang Chung, Gordon Lewis and Dr Jason Wright.

Among those speaking were Christelle Harris, director of marketing at Everglades, and CTL's CEO Camille Buchanan, who hailed the Hussey family for their long and distinguished association with local racing.

See Rum Fire Racing Pictures at  http://www.caymanasracetrack.com/photogallery/2011/2011-09-24/photogallery-2011-09-24.htm

The Rum Fire - The Reggae Super Star

Rum Fire a natural power-house for Reggae.

Rum Fire is natural, powerful and rocks any Reggae event. It's vibrant and robust yet having a smooth taste with complex taste notes, is fast becoming the preferred drink by all that want to enjoy the moment. 


Rum Fire rhythm to debut at Sting.
Scheduled for December 26 at Jamworld, Portmore, the 'greatest one-night reggae show on Earth', Sting, has this year joined forces with Rumfire as a major sponsor. For more, click on the link below.
Picture - From left: Sizzla, producers Roach and Justus  Arison of JA Productions - Contributed
http://jamaica-star.com/thestar/20111223/ent/ent4.html

News Flash - Rum Fire Wins Silver Medal

                                                                           

NEWS FLASH !!!!!!
Rum Fire was very well received in the United States where it won the Silver Medal in San Francisco and later went on to make it's presence felt in Europe and London.

For a great coverage by Pete at "The Floating Rum Shack", visit
Rum Fire White Overproof Rum

"First bottled back in March 2011, Rum Fire has done rather well in a short space of time. Nominated at the Berlin Rum Festival in the category of ‘Best Overproof Rum’ and also received a nomination at the UK RumFest for the Golden Barrel Award for ‘Best New White Rum’. Earlier in the year, Rum Fire won a Silver Medal in San Francisco for the Ministry of Rum competition." - The Floating Rum Shack.

Hampden - Rum Fire, would like to thank all of our friends, supporters, customers and industry trackers that have made the entry of this bold yet smooth and flavorful pot rum so well received since it's release in March 2011.

Hampden 'Fires' up rum market: Red Stripe to be sole distributors of new local spirit

Sabrina Gordon, Business Reporter

Red Stripe, sole brewers and bottlers of beer in Jamaica, has inked a deal with the Hussey family-owned Everglades Farms to be the exclusive distributor for Hampden Estate's first-ever bottled rum for the local market.

Hampden Estate, located on a 5,600-acre property in Trelawny, normally produces bulk rum for the European market, but has now ventured into bottling a white overproof rum brand, Rum Fire, to be marketed locally. The product is expected to be available on shelves islandwide by the end of March.
It is the first time that Hampden has produced rum for sale in the local market.

"Hampden has never come out with a local brand, and to get to this market is the premium part of the business," Andrew Hussey, director at Everglades Farms, told Wednesday Business. In terms of the partnership with Red Stripe, Ruth Hussey, board chair at Everglades Farms, said, "Rum Fire white overproof rum is an exceptionally smooth rum from Hampden Estate, and we wanted to partner with a world-class quality company with the requisite marketing skills, sales penetration and impressive infrastructure to make Rum Fire the consumers' first choice for white overproof."

The agreement calls for Red Stripe to market, sell and distribute the product.
Spokespersons for both Everglades and Red Stripe declined to provide information about the pricing strategy and other details about the deal. However, Brian Pengelley, sales director at Red Stripe, believes the product will find favour with local consumers. "The attractive price point, as well as the exceptional drinkability of Rum Fire, will find favour with Jamaican consumers," Pengelley said in a press release.

By entering the rum market, the deal also represents a milestone for Red Stripe, the island's sole beer-producing company. However, it will not be its first venture into the spirit market since it already distributes a range of spirits on the local market for its parent company, Diageo. "Rum Fire rum marks a new chapter in Red Stripe's drive to round out its spirits portfolio," said Pengelley. "White overproof rum has long been a preferred drink by many Jamaicans, but there have always been too few options," said Pengelley.

Rum Fire will compete with other brands on the market, the most popular being Wray and Nephew white overproof rum.

Along with the Long Pond Sugar Factory in Trelawny, Hampden Estate is operated and managed by Everglades Farms.

Hampden Estate, which has existed in Jamaica for close to 300 years, is the only distillery in Jamaica that specialises exclusively in the making of heavy-pot still rums. The estate exports between 400,000 and 500,000 litres of absolute alcohol annually to Europe and, to a smaller extent, South Africa.

sabrina.gordon@gleanerjm.com

Timeline - Rum Vs. Whisky - 1600-1880

The Rum/Whisky timeline represent a rich and extensive history, however, a quick summary is as follows.


You will agree that the making and consumption of spirits in one form or another is as old as mankind, however the art of distillation was definately known to the Egyptians, Greeks and Arabs as well as the Chinese long before Europe acquired the art,  probably about the 11th or 12th Century.  The first surviving record of Scotish whisky was in 1494 in the Exchequer Rolls. It is believed, however that distillation was already taking place in Scotland with large scale  commercial distilling commencing in the eighteenth century. It is to be noted that Ireland had some 2000 stills by the late eighteenth century.  


With the landing of the Mayflower in 1620, Scottish and Irish imigrants soon brought whisky distilling to Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia of which Maryland and Pennsylvania were the heartland or epicenter of Rye Whiskey. It was this Rye Whiskey that was the quintessential american whiskey until the onset of Prohibition which also dealt a death blow to the importation of some 400 brands of Irish Whisky into America . It was not until after the whisky rebellion of 1794 which took some 12,000 soldiers to quell that whisky distilling began moving into Kentucky and Tennessee and Westward.


So what about Bourbon. Some credit Elijah Craig in Scott County Virginia in 1789 with the first drinkable whiskey distilled from corn, while others say John Ritchie in 1777, Still others say it was Evan Williams that was the originator of Bourbon circa 1783. Kentucky became a state in 1792 and Bourbon County (named to acknowledge French aid in the revolution) gave its name to the famous american Bourbon Whiskey. 

Within the Caribbean It is believed that the Spanish started planting sugar cane within a few years of settling the New World (1492) followed by the English settlement of Barbados in 1627.  


Rum distillation have been recorded as early as 1663  (Mount Gay) when Rumbullion (early rum) was traded between Barbados and New England, Virginia and Connecticut.  Rumbullion was also known as Kill-devil in New England in 1651. 


Jamaica, captured by the British in 1655 saw distillation of rum sometime after 1749 by Appleton Estate, Long Pond Estate in Trelawny recorded  165 Hogshead of sugar and 85 puncheons of rum in 1780 and J.Wray and Nephew in 1825. Hampden Estate was surveyed in 1684 to confirm it's boundaries in a land dispute. Estate operations was already in force when  formalized in 1753  by Archibald Stirling of Scotland. Hampden then went on to become the quintessential heavy pot rum of Jamaica.  During the 18 century, Jamaica was the worlds largest producer of sugar and by extension, molasses . Rum shipments were fiercely guarded by the British Navy at Falmouth where Hampden  built its rum and sugar Wharf.


In the United States rum distillation started as early as 1657 in Boston, however, the British blockade of sugar and molasses as well as the molasses act of 1733  were instrumental in the shifting from rum to whiskey distilling within the USA as grain became cheaper and more readily available, especially corn which began to fuel Bourbon production around 1783.  Jack Daniels (1866) is America's oldest registered distillery but Maryland had distilleries prior Americas War of Independence. Many of these distilleries moved West after the Whiskey Wars with George Washington's Tax Men.


When compared with whisky from Scotland (large scale commercial distilling), the oldest distillery is reported to be Glenturret 1775, Bowmore 1779 and Scottish Highland whisky (Strathisla) founded in 1786, Glenlivet in 1824 and Glenfiddich circa 1830-1880. I have found conflicting dates for distilleries surrounding start of operations vs. registration etc. It should also be noted the difference in spelling between Scottish WHISKY and American WHISKEY, 


 It is clear that Jamaican Rum or Distilled Spirit  manufacturing predate many of  those in Scotland as well as  colonial America except for the Boston 1657 date. What is yet to be determined is which distilleries are the oldest in the British Caribbean.  Mount Gay probably would be first. The earliest record of Hampden was a land survey document by Mr. Thomas Goddard dated 1684 to reconfirm Hampden's property boundary.  Stay tuned for additional research findings.


Written by Outram J. Hussey