Award-winning Renegade Rum has expanded its reach across the states through a deal with Empire. This collaboration comes via Renegade Rum’s new importer partner, MORF Brands, a luxury beverage importer based in Texas.
“We are so very excited to be working with these brands. We couldn’t do it without them,” says Mark Reynier, CEO and Founder of Renegade Rum. “MORF has been fantastic and we got along from the moment we first met. For us, it’s a totally different distribution setup and it’s very easy to get wrong. To do this right, we put together a very complex distribution mosaic, of which those two companies are the first two in it.”
Making Waves in the U.S.
With Empire onboard, Renegade Rum’s products, which range from complex cuvées to rums made from a single field of sugarcane, will now be available in Tennessee, Georgia and Colorado. In addition to Empire, the following distributors will be handling additional markets for the company:
- Solcum & Sons will handle Connecticut
- Frederick Wildman will handle New York and New Jersey
- Horizon will handle Massachusetts
- Greenlight Distributor will handle Texas
- Heritage will handle Kentucky
The line-up available will also include the new launch of Renegade Rum’s flagship range, including the All-Island Cuvée: Nova, Single Farm Cuvée: Dunfermline, Cuvée: Aura and MicrOrigin: Hope.
Recently the distillery’s white rum, Pre-Cask Single Farm Origin: Hope, won a hat-trick at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition and was awarded as World’s Best Agricole, World’s Best Rum and World’s Best Unaged White Spirit. Additionally, the Pre-Cask Collection has also won awards/scores with Ultimate Spirits Challenge and Wine Enthusiast, to name a few.
Terroir Precision
Renegade Rum is a radical new distilling project that brings wine inspiration and whisky practices to the rum industry. With unrivaled transparency, the distillery harvests, mills and distills fresh sugar cane only — no molasses — from individual farms, one terroir, one field at a time, using the innovative distilling techniques gleaned from Reynier’s experience in the whisky industry.
“The whole essence here is to bring those terroir derived flavors together, layer by layer, creatively to make something where the whole is even greater than merely the sum of the parts,” Reynier says. “It’s not an everyday rum, it’s a serious serious sipping rum. It’s a game changer.”
Most rum is made from molasses, which is the end product after sugar has been made. But Reynier wanted to make rum from actual sugar cane. So in 2015, he established the brand’s agricultural company CaneCo to reintroduce seven varieties island-wide that adapted to the various soils, altitudes and microclimates. The island of Grenada provided the team with a blank canvas where they were able to find a variety of terroirs that allow the sugar cane to thrive and develop extraordinary flavors.
Environmentally Pioneering
The Grenada distillery is also environmentally friendly. Reynier says they generate their own electricity from the waste of the sugar cane, and utilize a radical waste water system that helps the surrounding mangroves and biome to flourish.
Reynier is very excited to bring his wonderfully unique rum to the U.S. where more people can enjoy it. Previously, Renegade Rum was only available in Grenada and France.
