Cask Trade partners with Renegade in exclusive deal!

Cask Trade has announced an exclusive agreement for the sale of rum casks from the Renegade Distillery for the next three years!

Renegade Rum Distillery in Grenada is the latest ground-breaking terroir-driven project by iconoclastic genius Mark Reynier. Former owner of the successful Bruichladdich distillery in Scotland and now founder of the Waterford Distillery in Ireland, Mark has turned his attention to the rum industry making terroir-driven rum from fresh sugarcane juice.

In the exclusive arrangement masters of whisky appreciation and specialists Cask Trade will be offering casks of new-make cane rum in hogsheads and barrels over the next three years.

We are very excited to have been chosen as Renegade’s exclusive cask partner. Cask strength rum has become increasingly attractive and this is a unique opportunity for people to buy into this revolutionary brand.

Mark Reynier is a true visionary in our industry and someone I have followed and admired for many years.
– Simon Aron: Managing Director of Cask Trade

With a background steeped in the French wine industry, the importance of terroir has been a driving force in all of Reynier’s projects. Starting out on the west coast of Scotland, he bought the then rundown Bruichladdich distillery and completely transformed its fortunes by using locally grown barley and much slower improved distillation techniques. Emboldened by the success here, Reynier looked for the world’s highest quality barley and found that it grew near Waterford in Ireland. This was the inspiration for opening his Irish whisky distillery, Waterford Distillery, which again was a huge success.

Now he has turned his attention to the rum industry. Reynier started out with the ambition of making a rum as interesting, serious and complex as a great single malt whisky. The result is the Renegade Rum Distillery in Grenada.

After several years of Indie bottling rums from around the Caribbean, I decided I wanted a go at making it, that I could do a better job. In 2014 I set out to answer the simple question: how to make a rum as profound as a single malt. Renegade is my answer. Terroir-driven spirit, fully traceable and totally transparent.

A rum distilled from sugar cane in the most environmentally compliant and advanced distillery ever built in the Caribbean, the first in the windward isles for over 100 years. And the production values – the same as for Waterford – provide a much needed industry rigour validated by the Cane Code on each bottle.
– Mark Reynier: CEO

Terroir-Driven Rum – After much research, Grenada was discovered to be the perfect location for growing sugar cane. An island with a diversity of fertile volcanic soil, microclimates, and varying altitudes. By growing several types of sugar cane on a dozen farms scattered around the island they have created up to 70 completely unique terroirs, which – when milled and distilled individually, terroir by terroir, have the potential to create countless distinct distillates. This is completely ground-breaking and the first for the rum industry.

Sugarcane – The rum is distilled from fresh sugar cane juice – the source of rum’s natural flavour – and not molasses. Initially, six heritage varieties of sugar cane were planted on the island. This then was finally narrowed down to three types which produced the finest distillate and adapted the best to the Grenadian terroir. As sugarcane production on the island had virtually ceased, the distillery realised they had to become farmers as well. A company called CaneCo was set up to supply the needs of the distillery cultivating 200 acres of land.

The Distillery – With building commencing in 2018, completed during the global pandemic in 2021, Renegade Rum is the first new distillery on the Windward Islands for over 100 years! This modern, high-tech distillery, using knowledge gleaned from the whisky industry, is environmentally sound as the power comes from a biomass boiler that uses the spent sugar cane excess, which is called bagasse. The copper pot stills as well as the small batch column stills were manufactured by the famous Forsyths in Scotland. Each day one subsection of a field is distilled, producing a huge variety of different distillates. Fermentation is another pioneering aspect of the distillery as they have installed the world’s first, horizontal and thermoregulated fermenters designed to produce the cleanest, purest flavours of sugar cane.

Maturation – Renegade use several different types of casks. Virgin American and Virgin French oak, First Fill American and Premium French, and interestingly Colombian Andean oak. The optimal maturation is estimated at five years.

Cask Trade has announced an exclusive agreement for the sale of any casks being sold by the Renegade Distillery for the next three years. The cask types available are as follows:

Renegade Cane Rum, Hogshead, 2022 to 2024

Renegade Cane Rum, Barrel, 2022 to 2024

The casks are new-make rum. Each option is filled into various type of casks including, but not limited to, French Oak (ex-wine casks) and American Oak.

Maturation options include locations in Grenada or Waterford, Ireland.

Renegade Rum Distillery

The long-awaited first spirit has finally flowed from the US$25 million Renegade Rum Distillery, Mark Reynier’s pioneering terroir-driven rum project in Grenada.

Located on the north eastern coast of the Windward Island, Renegade Rum is a state-of-the-art distillery – the first of its scale to have been designed from the ground up for terroir-bred sugar cane.

As well as cutting-edge still design and digital logistics, Renegade Rum Distillery is built on sophisticated technology for air filtration and water purification of waste streams, thus ensuring distilling systems run in rhythm with natural systems.

CEO Mark Reynier with Son, Ruari, filling barrel number 1!

Renegade Rum Distillery is the vision of Mark Reynier, CEO of the pioneering terroir-driven Waterford Distillery in Ireland, and who resurrected the Islay distillery of Bruichladdich in 2001.

Using the same methodology as France’s greatest vignerons, Reynier’s ambition is to create the world’s most profound rum by extracting flavours from Grenada’s isolated parcels of sugar cane grown on the diverse and fertile volcanic terroirs, with complete individuality from cane to cask.

In the face of severe COVID-19 restrictions and consequent ban of commissioning experts, the distillery’s vast components from 10 different countries, including mill, horizontal fermentors and pot and column stills, were commissioned by the home-grown Renegade Rum team under remote guidance.

On the afternoon of September 21st, 2020, after milling sugar cane grown on the La Sagesse farm, Head Distiller Devon Date made the cut to hearts – and the distillery was finally making Renegade Rum.

I started planning the project in June 2015 after an initial exploratory trip to the island. Immediately I felt this was the right home for Renegade after a fruitless 10 year search. It has been a veritable rollercoaster of a ride since then and several times I was on the point of giving up – frustrated by the lack of progress, dead ends and delays. Several times I wondered whether I had bitten off more than I could chew.

We had the chance to make something really special here, with the latest thinking, drawing on our distilling experience from Scotland and Ireland to support the unique underpinning Renegade philosophy: rum defined by Grenada’s geology, farm by farm, field by field.

Unusually this project has been both back to front and upside down: first we had to propagate cane where none existed to prove it was worthwhile building a distillery; then we had to design it backwards, from the end waste streams back to the incoming cane.

Now we have a landmark, state-of-the-art-distillery, the envy of the industry, built and run by Grenadians to use Grenadian cane – the veritable spirit of Grenada. After all the blood, tears, sweat of determination and technical ingenuity – not to mention a global pandemic – we are delighted that the Renegade Rum Distillery is alive.
– Mark Reynier: CEO

Renegade Rum Team