Can The Former Rugby Pros Behind Vapoura Make English Rum A Thing?

Ed Jackson and Olly Barkley, co-founders of Vapoura

Vapoura

Rum has ever been bully astatine fantasy, conjuring sunshine successful a bad bar, smuggling a small power successful the cold, and making the astir sensible drinker concisely susceptible to the propulsion of a insubstantial umbrella. But it’s besides a class that carries superior freight: sugar, trade, assemblage history, Caribbean expertise, naval myth, cocktail civilization and a long, uneven travel from saccharine statement tone to thing collectors and bartenders progressively dainty pinch the aforesaid reverence erstwhile reserved for whisky.

So erstwhile an English rum marque arrived pinch luxury ambitions, a gold-tinged bottle, and 2 erstwhile master rugby players among the group telling its story, scepticism wasn’t unreasonable. English sparkling wine has just about done the difficult activity of becoming credible, but English rum still has a batch to prove.

And that, according to erstwhile pro rugby subordinate Olly Barkley, was precisely the point.

Vapoura, the marque he launched alongside Ed Jackson and their wider founding squad successful 2023, is not trying to out-Caribbean the Caribbean, nor is it leaning excessively heavy connected the easy communicative of 2 sportsmen moving into tone (even if that mightiness person made the early waste alternatively simpler).

“The rugby relationship is astir apt the slightest absorbing point astir what we’ve built,” he says. “What’s really absorbing is the timing. England has earned existent credibility successful whisky and successful vino complete the past decade—nobody blinks astatine English sparkling vino now—and we deliberation rum is next.”

Its sell, here, is astir what Englishness tin mean successful a rum context: not sweetener cane grown successful the incorrect climate, but control, proximity, transparency and a modern flavour floor plan made successful England from the start. “For america it comes backmost to wanting Vapoura to guidelines connected its ain for the correct reasons,” says Barkley. “Being an English rum is an authenticity story—it’s astir having adjacent interaction pinch our distillers, being hands-on successful merchandise development, and controlling value astatine each stage.”

While Vapoura’s molasses derives from sweetener cane produced successful Mauritius, the preparation, fermentation, distillation, maturation, blending and bottling each hap successful England. And, sure, that could consciousness inside-baseball for astir casual drinkers, but it’s basal to the brand’s credibility for its founder.

“It would person been the easy point to do—lean connected our ain profiles, waste to an existing audience, return the speedy wins,” Jackson says. “We chose not to, because we wanted the value of the liquid and the marque to gain their spot wholly connected their own. That felt for illustration the only measurement to build thing that lasts.”

For Jackson, that restraint is particularly striking. In 2017, aft diving into the incorrect extremity of a swimming pool, he suffered a catastrophic spinal injury.

“There’s nary uncertainty that if I hadn’t dived into the incorrect extremity of a swimming pool, I wouldn’t beryllium sat present pinch Vapoura today,” he says. Before the accident, he imagines he mightiness person vanished his rugby profession and taken “a reasonably well-trodden path” into finance, security aliases commercialized property. Instead, he says, he ended up “running a charity, climbing mountains, and building a ace premium intoxicant brand,” but he’s observant not to move that into merchandise copy. “That acquisition is applicable to maine arsenic a personification and to everything I do, but it’s not really applicable to Vapoura arsenic a product,” he says.

What it did alteration was his appetite for risk. “Once you’ve been resuscitated a fewer times and realised you shouldn’t really still beryllium here, you adopt a spot of a ‘why not springiness it a go’ mentality—you don’t want to dice wondering.”

Vapoura began, arsenic galore indulgent ideas did, successful lockdown. Barkley, Jackson and Ross Stirling spent clip tasting done higher-end rums from the islands they already loved, past trying to activity retired what a home look could beryllium if it was not simply an imitation of thing older, hotter and much established.

They had benchmarks. Jackson mentions Plantation XO arsenic a rum they loved, though he’s speedy to opportunity replication was ne'er the brief. “Practically, you can’t replicate a 12-year tube property from a opinionated commencement anyway,” he says. Instead, Vapoura had to find extent elsewhere: done spice, oak, texture and a flavour floor plan that could consciousness unique without becoming gimmicky. “What we agreed connected crossed some was extent of flavour and existent uniqueness—we sewage location pinch the cardamom character—plus a well-rounded mouthfeel, which is wherever the oak comes in.”

The first bottle, Chapter One, is simply a spiced rum vanished successful bourbon casks, sitting successful a class that’s commercially useful but not ever taken seriously. Spiced rum tin beryllium excellent; it tin besides beryllium sticky, overblown and built for fizzy drinks alternatively than enjoyment. Barkley describes Vapoura’s type arsenic “spiced rum done properly, successful a craft-led, quality-first way,” pinch a earthy botanical operation and a floor plan intended to activity successful superior cocktails arsenic good arsenic simpler serves.

“Chapter One needed to radiance and guidelines up successful a spirit-forward cocktail,” he says. “On serves, my go-to is simply a sour, a spot sweeter, a spot much fun. Ed drinks his arsenic neat arsenic possible.”

That quality successful palate explains Chapter Two, Vapoura’s golden rum. It’s richer and much deliberately aimed astatine drinkers who mightiness different scope for whisky. “Chapter Two is built for group who for illustration to sip—people having it neat aliases connected the rocks, which is really I portion it personally,” Jackson says. “It’s not the vessel to suffer successful a tiki serve; it’s much of a fireside, quiet-serving-moment benignant of drink.”

For Barkley, Chapter Two is besides wherever Vapoura asks to beryllium judged much seriously. He points to a Pedro Ximénez cask look owed successful September, describing it arsenic “a single-cask rum that goes into the PX pinch thing added and thing diluted afterwards.” He is observant astir the declare that follows: “We’re not alert of different rum being aged this way—certainly not different English one.”

“But what’s really successful the liquid, and really it’s made,” he says, are still the questions superior buyers ask. That scepticism, he argues, is not the irritation it mightiness beryllium for different people. “Producing connected location ungraded intends we’re adjacent to each stage, truthful there’s thing we can’t relationship for and thing we request to obscure. We didn’t take to make it present to show a bully English story—we chose it because it’s the only measurement to guidelines down each driblet pinch complete confidence.”

The existent mobility is whether that assurance tin scale. Vapoura’s seeking backstage seed finance to turn the team, support merchandise improvement and, eventually, trial export markets, but they’re alert of the contradiction built into the plan. Luxury whitethorn request patience, but investors request movement. “We request pace, because you request gross to support what you’re doing, but location besides needs to beryllium existent protection of the marque alongside that, because this is simply a semipermanent vision,” he says. “It’s not astir hitting numbers connected a page period to month.”

Jackson’s reply is culture. Partly, he intends the morals of the business—Vapoura is B Corp certified—but besides thing much human. “We want to support it nosy and a bully spot to be, truthful that group who activity pinch america spell distant reasoning they enjoyed it,” he says. “That’s the point I’d dislike astir to suffer arsenic we grow.”

Understandably, it’s a very different world from master sport, wherever some men built their first careers. Jackson says rugby prepared him for plenty, but not for selling. “It doesn’t travel people to me,” he says. Nor did it hole him for the upset of startup life. “Professional athletics is astir arsenic system an situation arsenic you tin beryllium in: you’re told wherever to be, what to eat, what your gym convention is, your kit’s laid retired for you successful the morning, your full twelvemonth is mapped retired successful advance. Running a startup is the complete opposite.”

Barkley recovered the displacement likewise disorienting. “One infinitesimal you’re reasoning astir strategy, the adjacent you’re dealing pinch operations, finance, recruitment aliases sales,” he says. “There are ever aggregate plates to rotation and it took maine a while to get comfortable pinch that.”

What has helped, significantly, is on-trade. “A bartender recommending your rum is 1 of the biggest accolades location is—it carries a spot nary magnitude of trading tin buy,” Barkley says. He points to relationships pinch venues including The Mandrake and Daylesford, wherever the liquid is not simply placed connected a backmost barroom but worked into the life of the venue. “That only ever useful arsenic an ongoing relationship, not a one-off placement.”

The brand’s After Stories bid began pinch the Fitzrovia hotel, pairing cocktails pinch original euphony inspired by the venue and pressed to vinyl—the benignant of point that could sound insufferable if the portion were not bully enough, but Jackson sees it arsenic cardinal to the agelong game.

“From the commencement we’ve taken inspiration from really the awesome luxury houses build their world: the thought that the merchandise is the bosom of it, but the civilization astir it is what makes group autumn successful love,” he says. “That’s what our caller After Stories bid is really about. It goes beyond a euphony activation—it’s a collaboration pinch landmark venues, wherever we create an original assemblage of euphony for each one, pressed to vinyl, that captures the tone of that place.”

Still, Vapoura’s stepping an unusually challenging tightrope. Too overmuch marque world, it risks looking for illustration a product. Too overmuch liquid geekery, it loses the group it needs to seduce. Too overmuch Englishness, it becomes novelty. Not enough, and the full proposition’s lost.

For now, its founders look unusually alert of those traps. Barkley says occurrence successful 10 years would mean “real world distribution” and a marque that resonates beyond the liquid itself, done music, creation and collaborations extracurricular drinks. Jackson wants Vapoura recognised globally arsenic “a progressive, luxury British brand—one that’s understood to beryllium astir acold much than what’s successful the bottle.”

Whether English rum tin go a superior luxury class is still successful question, and Vapoura isn’t the only marque trying to reply it, but it’s an particularly useful trial lawsuit for what that reply mightiness require: not simply a amended bottle, aliases a amended story, but a much precise knowing of wherever provenance ends and persuasion now begins.