Captain Morgan Rum Company

The history

In the 17th century a Welshman by the name of Sir Henry Morgan set sail for the West Indies and stopped on a tropical island in the Caribbean.

He was respected by his crew and made a name for himself in every port that he stopped in, so much so that he became the Governor of Jamaica and stayed there until his death in 1688.

Although sugar cane was used in Egypt to make alcohol it only became more widely used in the 16th century when farmers began to use the sugar cane from their plantations for alcoholic beverages.

As the popularity grew people changed and altered the tastes by adding in different things to make it unique to their own country’s tastes and Jamaica added molasses which was the by-product of the sugar, which they distilled and turned into rum.

Rum was extremely strong and in some cases too strong for the general public to consume and they softened it up by adding spices to it.

In 1944 the Seagram Company owned by Samuel Bronfman purchased the Long Pond distillery from the Jamaican government and one of the buyers were a family called the Levy’s who bought raw rum and added herbs and spices to it.

Samuel liked this idea and bought the rights to the rum.

He named the rum Captain Morgan and he built larger distilleries in San Juan and sold the distillery in Puerto Rico due to tax restraints but allowed the company to use Captain Morgan under licensing.

By 1984 Captain Morgan Rum was the 7th largest spirit brand in the world, the 2nd largest in United States and is sold around the world.

In 2001 Seagram sold the brand to Diageo and rebranding took place with the mascot Captain Morgan being shown across the world with competitions also encouraging people to dress up like the Captain in a “selfie” to win a prize as well as big promotional marketing techniques that have included NFL players.

In 2010 American congress debated about the alcohol and whether it should be moved to Virgin Islands and taken out of Puerto Rico due to tax incentives as the rum seemed to be making a big profit and in U.S.A. alone 7.6 million 9 litre cases were sold in one year.

Today the brand is well known throughout the world and there are many flavours that have been created with Captain Morgan’s Original Black Rum being the first to have been produced along with 18 more throughout the years.

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Meet the Red Beard cocktail.

It takes a brave man to name a cocktail after something that reminds you of short, wiry hair. I am that Captain.

Recipe:

• 1 oz Captain Morgan™ Original Spiced Rum
• 0.5 oz Smirnoff®
• Cherry 5 oz cola

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