Momentum
finally building behind rum, the last spirits category to fully climb up the
value ladder. Perhaps it’s finally rum’s time to shine. Key to this was shifting the consumer
conversation to premium offerings and placing an emphasis on the premium and
ultra-premium expressions. One of the
weaknesses of rum is that the super-premium and ultra-premium categories are
relatively underdeveloped, compared to those of whisky and cognac.
The other problem for the rum customer is that those looking for rare and
top quality rums are being forced elsewhere. The rum consumers look to online resources, rum
clubs and friends traveling abroad when they are seeking high-end rums. They are simply aren’t available in most
liquor stores, even if they are, then
they are only sporadic on the shelves and not enough to get the connoisseurs
excited enough to keep visiting the stores on the off chance of finding something
to suit their taste.
It’s
been several years where the rum category has been working to develop and fill
the gap between the low end production rums and that of the super-premium and
ultra-premium expressions. In many
cases, the retail portion of this equation has no idea that there are really
expressions of this caliber from the category.
Rum has to seriously attack this lack of knowledge relating to these
expressions both at the customer level, but at the wholesale and retail level
as well. This after all is the only
sector of the category that is showing some sales growth, while the rest has
been losing ground over the past couple of years.
Great rums do no good if the customers can’t get their hands on
them. It seems to me that the industry
needs to put as much effort into educating the public and the market place of
the availability of these wonderful expressions.
