With John on vacation, I flew solo on this episode to welcome Ben Inglis, distillery manager and co-founder of The Islay Rum Company, to the show to get the full story on his unique approach to Scottish rum.

If you listened to our Guide to UK Rum episode, you'll remember that John and I rated both of the Islay Rum Company rums we tried quite favorably, so we'd been hoping to talk to Ben ever since. We discussed:

How Ben convinced the Vintage Malt Whisky Company to back his vision of Islay's first rum distillery instead of building a Scotch whisky distillery

Scottish Gaelic pronunciations

The pressure that comes with putting the word "Islay" on a bottle of rum

Contending with the island's flavor profile expectations

Building out the distillery in a historic lemonade factory

Why getting a custom made double retort pot still was a must

Crafting their initial flavor profile

Experiments with long fermentation, native bacteria, yeasts, and more

Balancing inspiration with originality

What's aging right now? And when can we taste it??

And a whole lot more!

You can learn more about The Islay Rum Company here: https://www.islayrum.com/

Check out our episode on the wider UK rum scene here: https://www.rumcast.com/episodes/uk-rum-guide

P.S. Did you know you can support The Rumcast on Patreon now and get bonus episodes, happy hours, and more? You can! Head to patreon.com/therumcast to check it out.