Our plans for John Paul Jones are in full swing.
Our last few blogs in this ship’s log have been about our remarkable premium rum and the massive amount of care (and quality ingredients) we put into it. We hope you’ll forgive us for this, it’s just that we’re so proud of our infused dark rum, Lowland and its botanical white rum sibling, Ranger, that we’ve been champing at the bit to tell you all about them!
Creating a UK artisan rum brand isn’t only about products.
Building a successful botanical rum company isn’t just about what’s in the bottles, though. The quality of the ingredients and the taste of our artisan rum is our first priority, but if we’re going to revolutionise the premium rum industry and truly raise the bar, we need to make sure that the world gets the message!
Emulating our revolutionary hero.
It’s no secret that we have big ambitions for our seaweed infused premium rums. After all, if you’re happy with being just another UK artisan rum brand, you don’t name your company after a man who sailed to the other side of the world and risked everything to fight for a cause he believed in. We know we have something truly ground-breaking, so we want rum aficionados across the globe to sit up and take notice.
John Paul Jones Rum successful fundraising.
To fulfil our vaulting ambitions we needed investment, so we took our Scottish rum company to market and offered savvy investors the opportunity to back us. Which we’re delighted to say they did. We’re proud to say that we have now secured investment totalling £200,000, at a valuation of £2m. This is, of course, great news for us and we’re pleased that our investors share our confidence in what we’re doing. But we’re absolutely not resting on our laurels and patting ourselves on the back. The way we look at it is, we’ve raised enough money to charter a crew and ready a ship. But we have yet truly to set sail. This is a craft rum adventure that’s only just beginning.
What the investment means for John Paul Jones Rum.
The money is, honestly, the least exciting part of our investment journey. What truly gets our revolutionary juices flowing is what it enables us to do. We’re investing in traditional and digital marketing and are working with an expert team who are helping us spread the word. We also have a calendar full of opportunities to exhibit at trade shows, which is still a hugely successful channel for us, as the advantage of meeting our customers face to face is that they can taste and ‘sea’ for themselves how our seaweed-infused botanical rum leaves others in its wake.
Retailers are coming aboard.
Our voyage to widespread renown has to include being listed in major retailers; John Paul Jones Rum deserves to take its place on the shelves. So you’ll understand how pleased we were when, late last year, retailers such as the world-famous Fortnum & Mason and leading farm shop Daylesford Organic chose to make our botanical white rum and spiced dark rum available to their discerning customers. We’re also available to buy across Europe on Amazon. We feel that this is a sign of big things to come and warmly encourage other online and offline shops to do their clients a favour and join the revolution. Just drop us a line here.
We are Christening a new ship.
In what is perhaps the most exciting development of all, we’ve channelled some of our investment funds into launching a new product that’s set to make real waves in the industry. We’ve kept this one under wraps for a while and it’s a real thrill to be able to tell you about it. We decided to age our Caribbean white rum, in Scotland, using a quarter-cask that formerly held the very finest Islay Scotch whisky. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the first occasion on which this has been done. Once again, we will infuse the rum with our signature spiral wrack seaweed, which we harvest ourselves from the beach that John Paul Jones himself first learnt to sail.
We name this ship Providence.
The result is Providence which, like its sister Ranger, we have named after one of John Paul Jones’ ships. As you might expect from its ageing process, Providence is an exceptional, unique, smoky dry rum. We are proud to announce that Providence comes untouched by caramel colouring, chill filtration or added sugar. We only put down a single cask, so just 150 bottles of this highly exclusive artisan rum will be available at £70 each. Providence is presented to buy in a premium cardboard sleeve and each bottle will carry a unique bottle and batch number. This super premium smoky seaweed infused rum is sure to become a highly sought-after modern classic, so you’ll need to be quick if this is a ship you’d like to board.
We’re always available to talk.
We hope you’ve enjoyed reading about our progress. And remember, whether you’re an investor, a retailer, an expert or simply a fan, we’d love to hear your thoughts as to how we’re getting on. Feel free to drop us a line with thoughts, comments and suggestions.
Now, if you’ll excuse us, shore leave is over. We need to get back aboard!
JPJ