Pirates with a Purpose: sustainable rums

Two Drifters Rum is a unique brand of your favourite Caribbean tipple, made in Devon with green energy, and sold in bottles with compostable seals, and sugarcane fibre labels.

Created by a couple who spent their honeymoon on St Lucia (home to rum!), they decided (with a joint background in marketing and chemistry) to get together to found a sustainable rum company in England.

Rum is a pretty strong boozy tipple (easy to get smashed on, so don’t drink too much!) These rums ferment 100% molasses, and blend with purified Devon water (for white rum) or spices and waste cacao husks (for spiced rum). Waste molasses are given to local farms.

Rinse then recycle bottles (caps can be left on, machines separate them). Recycle corks in bulk at Recorked. 

One of the first rums with a carbon-negative footprint, it has high hopes to capture 1% of the UK rum market by 2028, and 1% of the global market by 2035. All without harming the earth.

Sold in a light, British-made glass bottle with FSC-certified corks, any carbon from importing rum ingredients is offset via Climeworks.

You can also buy taster sets, to try before you buy full bottles!

1. Signature Rum is for the purists, with flavours of orange peel and muscovado sugar, matured in ex-Madeira casks for a year, which gives an orange aroma.
2. Pure White Rum has fresh notes of vanilla, apple, white pepper and lime zest. Crisp and fresh.
3. Lightly Spiced Rum is made with cacao husks (a waste product of making chocolate), and has notes of vanilla, chai, toffee apple and cacao.
4. Overproof Spiced Pineapple Rum has notes of ripe fruits, salted caramel and crème brûlée, again enhanced with waste cacao husks for a chocolate flavour.

Serve the old-fashioned way by stirring with cubed ice, sugar syrup and orange bitters, and garnish with orange zest. Or just serve ‘on the rocks’ and garnish with orange slice.

Karisimbi Rum (profits help protect endangered gorillas)

Karisimbi spiced rums are by a small family brand, offering tropical tipples of award-winning rums, with profits helping gorilla conservation charities.

Mountain gorillas are (despite protection) still an endangered species, at serious threat of extinction (numbers have grown to just over 1000 in the wild).

The range includes

• Spiced rum with blood orange, cinnamon, ginger and vanilla. Try with ginger ale, or add a dash to a hot chocolate for extra kick.
• Golden rum has notes of dried fruits, butterscotch, burnt sugar, caramel and a hint of vanilla and orange. Nice with a fiery ginger beer.
• White rum is made with Jamaican molasses and cane juice from the Dominican Republic. With notes of pineapple, stone fruit and overripe banana. Nice in a Daiquiri or mojito.

Also makes mountain-strength gin and vodka!

Silverback is based on Hampshire/Surrey border, offering three gins:

• Mountain strength (a fresh taste of orange citrus and warm spices, with hints of lemongrass and honey – not real honey, it’s just a description!)
• Wild strawberry blends the contemporary gin with fragrant wild-strawberries, nice for summer
• Clementine and bergamot has a juicy floral taste, again nice for summer

The silverback vodka is a smooth and creamy vodka, with a hint of spice and sweet finish. Sold in a post-consumer recycled glass bottle.

Caleño Dark & Spicy (a no-alcohol rum alternative)

Caleño Dark & Spicy is a no-alcohol alternative to a dark and storm rum! Both vegan and gluten-free, this is from a Bristol brand that offers affordable alternatives to conventional drinks, inspired by the founder’s Columbian roots. It’s an exotic blend of pineapple, coconut, ginger, vanilla, kola nut and lime.

Just serve 50ml over ice with optional 15ml of fresh lime juice, then top with 200ml of ginger ale. Top with a lime garnish and optional pineapple leaves.

For a Tropical nojito, ‘smack’ 5 to 6 fresh mint leaves (to release their flavours) in a highball glass, then muddle with the wedges of 1 fresh lime. Pour over 50ml of Caleño Dark & Spicy and 15ml of sugar syrup (if you don’t want to make a batch, just add 15ml of agave nectar), then stir and top with soda water.

Garnish with a large mint sprig and a wedge of lime.

Pop ring pulls over can holes then step on upper cans before recycling to pinch top together, to avoid wildlife getting trapped.

The founder has Columbian heritage, a country with the most biodiversity on earth (after Brazil). A third of the country is rainforest, where pink dolphins leap out of the water. Having said that, the locals won’t be drinking this spirit – their national drink is made from sugar cane, and very much not alcohol-free!