"Rum's proponents have found favorable comparisons in the recent successes in the worlds of whiskey and tequila. Barrel-aged rums, they observe, offer similar sipping qualities and ages as high-end bourbons, but often at much more attractive price points. Clear, cane juice rums, they note, serve up some of the same herbal, piquant, and mineral flavors that agave aficionados have thrown so much weight behind."
"The rum zealots' optimism may emanate from the eternal sunshine of the piña colada, but the harsh reality is that the boom has yet to materialize. In fact, rum sales have contracted. It has been one of the worst-performing spirit categories in the U.S. The IWSR, the global leader for beverage alcohol data and insights, provided a snapshot of rum's compound annual growth rate from 2018 to 2024 at a disappointing -3 percent, the lowest of any category it measured across that period."
Evangelists of dunder and molasses predicted a rum sales boom, citing barrel-aged rums' similarities to bourbons and cane-juice rums' herbal, piquant, mineral flavors akin to agave spirits. Despite those comparisons and hopes that whiskey and tequila growth would translate to rum, U.S. rum sales have contracted and underperformed. IWSR data show a compound annual growth rate of -3% from 2018 to 2024, the lowest among measured categories, and -7% from 2022 to 2024. That recent decline is matched only by brandy, leaving rum effectively stalled in the market.
Read at Slate Magazine
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