Australia has a long and colourful history of rum stretching back to the Rum Corps and Rum Rebellion of 1808 which led to the introduction of our first legal currency, the Holy Dollar, by Governor Lachlan Macquarie two years later.

Until recently, pretty much all rum in Australia was made from molasses, as is 97% of the world’s rum. But it turns out molasses isn’t the only thing you can use to make rum - so discovered our Founder Paul Messenger during an island-hopping adventure through the Caribbean in 2009.

On the French island of Martinique, Paul found himself sipping a Ti punch in a small coastal bar on the rugged north coast in the shadow of Mount Pele on a lazy, summer afternoon with a gentle breeze wafting across the Atlantic coast.

The locals at the bar proudly proclaimed that their rum, commonly known as Agricole rum, was the Best Rum in the world.

He met this with a grin as he’d heard the same claim on just about every Caribbean lsland he’d visited.

But they insisted that their rum really was different, being made from fresh cane juice, and had what they called terroir, which they explained was the unique character of the people and place where it’s made – their beautiful island home of Martinique.

Paul recalls.

“I had to admit it was pretty good as I’d never had a Ti-punch before – a little raw sugar, squeeze and drop a fresh lime cheek and a good shot of white Agricole rum , well stirred and sipped slowly.

After a while I began to see what they were talking about – this bright, clean, heady spirit was unlike any rum I’d tasted before.

It had a vibrancy and complexity that I will forever associate with that little bar on that little beach on that small island in the company of friendly people, so far away.

Later I sought out the distillery where that rum was made and spent many hours talking to staff and exploring every aspect of its production from the crushing of the cane in the big roller mill driven by an ancient steam engine, the fiery boiler at one end of the building, to the large steel fermenters and copper column stills at the other end from which flowed that sweet aromatic spirit.

After dinner that night I was treated to a 20 year-old, tropical aged, sipping rum, equal to any fine single malt whisky, and in that moment I became a believer in this unusual French Agricole rum.”

Paul’s time on Martinique inspired him to develop an Australian expression of this rum drawing from the unique provenance of the homeland where he grew up.

He established Husk Distillers, which over the next 10 years would pioneer the cultivation and production of this new style of rum from the freshly crushed juice of the finest local sugar cane varieties on a little farm distillery across the river from Tumbulgum in northern NSW.

To reflect its nature and characteristics, we named this style of rum: Cultivated rum.