The Beginning
The team at JackSpeak HQ are very good at thinking. They love nothing more than sitting around a big table, thinking big thoughts and coming up with BIG ideas. And so early in 2019 Nick Shillabeer of JackSpeak and Laurance Traverso of Distinctly Drinks sat down together over coffee to discuss the idea of a naval heritage drink.
Laurance had been toying with the idea of a Caribbean blended rum, cut with Devon Water for a couple of years but he just needed the right branding and design. Nick had just the thing: the Jack Speak Brand. Both thought rum would be a fantastic addition so they investigated (thinking hard) some more…
The Middle
Delegated with an unbelievably tough job; well someone had to do it, Laurance traipsed out to the Caribbean to speak to some local distillers. A difficult task, but he eventually narrowed down the choices to just four rums on which he worked his magic.
Nick in the meantime (still in Dartmouth) had come up with some beautiful designs (some more Piratey than others) and launched the "Rum Made me do it” T-shirts that were going down a storm…RUM was definitely coming.
Laurance brought a small amount of the (top secret – we can’t tell you) blend back with him from Jamaica and got to work spicing the final rum. Working with fruit, spices and natural flavours, Laurance persevered to see what worked, what didn’t and what was the perfect ingredient to finish it. The problem was the rum was so great already he didn’t want to spice it too heavily. With this in mind, the decision was taken to keep the spicing to a minimum and let the rum speak for itself.
Jack Speak Premium Spiced Rum is based on a five year old rum from Jamaica (distilled traditionally with sugar cane using a copper double-retort pot). It is then blended with a further two other 5 year old rums and one non aged rum from the Dominican republic to add a citrus note. Our entire blend is then aged in bourbon barrels to give a beautifully soft rounded drink with traces of burnt caramel and citrus. We then finished the rum back in the UK using hand picked vanilla (plus a couple of secret ingredients 😜) and crystal clear Devon Spring Water. All this is overseen by our master blender Laurance Traverso from Distinctly Drinks.
The End (or also the beginning)
The result is a fabulous sipping rum, which we are incredibly proud of, and which we recently launched. Perfect served with a slice of orange, but also excellent with your favourite mixer. You could even consider having a tot with friends around a big table, to think your big thoughts!
JackSpeak HQ and Laurance really hope you love it as much as they do! Buy on our website www.jack-speak.co.uk or in our shop. Dartmouth Wine Company also stock it, or you can have a tot in many of the pubs around town!