Boston Rum Week 2026

(Above photo taken by Jessie Fox)

Boston Rum Week is a relatively new rum festival located in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States of America. This year was my first opportunity to go, and so I took it and was able to attend the Friday and Saturday events that were held. I thought I could give my thoughts on the festival overall and my experience around it. To be up front about it, I know quite a few of the folks that put on the Boston Rum Festival. I’ve hosted them at my house multiple times for rum tastings and to hang out, and they were kind enough to let me stay in one of their guest rooms so we could explore Boston and the festival. They did not ask or request I write about the festival in any way, but if you did get a name badge and you attended the festival, I did put my auditor skills to some use and helped make sure that the printed badges matched the proper categories and names. See you can find audit work in the most unexpected places.

So, we arrived Thursday in Boston and did the tourist things (I am a big fan of history) so we walked a good chunk of the history trail, ate some good food, and just explored the city. Thursday is when the real fun began with events.

The first event we attended was the talk given above. The entire team provided a very engaging, entertaining, and informative presentation on the history of New England rum. Seth and Stephen walked everyone in the room through the start of rum in New England in the late 1600s and early 1700s up through the early 1900s, showing how rum has always been a factor in this part of the country. Stephen also discussed how one of the earliest rum distilleries open in New England in the early 1800s helped pave the way for America to start its industrial revolution. Ian provided some perspective on how important the history of rum was as well as floated the idea of an eventual rum GI for New England rum. giving comparisons to how Jamaican rum is protected by its GI currently. Seth was very engaging as well with this presentation, as this team has begun a research project that, at this time of writing, is 3 weeks in, so I would expect to hear and see a lot more from them going forward in this space. Andrew Cabot, with his deep historical connections and current ownership of Privateer rum, is assisting this team to get this started both out of that historical family connection as well as a genuine interest in the category. Overall, it was an incredibly nerdy and fantastic way to kick off the rum events I was able to attend.

After the team wrapped up their presentation, we were treated to a guided rum tasting from Mitch Wilson Head of Gloabl Rum Development at E&A Scheer. Mitch had pulled 6 archive samples from the lab at Scheer and walked us through all 6 samples to educate and show a sneak peak at some of what he will be doing in his new role.

Mitch talked about how at Scheer, they have these archives of casks they have sold that they hold onto for a few years just in case. After those 2 years they just sit there. Now, Mitch will be using them in a limited capacity to help bring rum education up to the level that a lot of folks have about whisky education across the globe, thanks to a lot of effort from brand owners of all these whisky distilleries between Scotland and the U.S.

Now onto the rums that Mitch shared. These were all done pretty blind; they would get poured, the room would drink them and call out some notes, and Mitch would then reveal what they were to us. These were all at cask strength with no additives at the time of bottling. We did not know the proof on any of them either.

Rum #1 – Nicaragua 24 Years 1998 (Flor De Cana). Honestly, I was floored when I tried this. I don’t have many expectations from anything from F.D.C., but this was a great dark chocolate bomb from the distillery. It was rich and pleasant to drink. It really showed how any distillery can create a very good rum, as long as it isn’t diluted to within an inch of its life.

Rum #2 – Barbados 21 Year 2002 (Mount Gay). This was a 100% pot still rum from Mount Gay that was just very off profile from what I have expected from the Mount Gay rum I’ve had in the past. The rum was very herbaceous with a lot of mint and rancio. It also reinforced a bit of what Scheer is able to provide in terms of bottles and blends that you expect, or even very off-profile casks from some of the most famous distilleries on the globe.

Rum #3 – Guyana 19 Year 2003 Demerara Distillers 100% Savallae still -I’m not usually one to go for non Port Mourant DDls, but this was so bright and fruity that I would have loved this bottling. It was rich and bright in all the best ways with just a touch of industrial notes as well. It should be no surprise a Scheer tasting would include Guyana given their history, but it certainly stood among the best in this set.

Rum #4 Guyana 33 Year 1989 Demerara Distillers Port Mourant – I have to say, when you have a rum full of this level of rum passion and knowledge, to announce what a rum is and get a collective “Ooooooh” from everybody, there is quite an accomplishment. This is quite an old expression of rum that they have, and it was quite delicious. Bold, rancio, iodine, vegetal, and a bit of canvas. The reason that Mitch pulled this one out is Main Rum was founded in 1984, and so this is one of the oldest barrels that they had, and so they wanted to share it with us. Very cool history, but also, no surprise, this was my pick of all the rums here.

Rum #5 – Jamaica 20ish Years 2005 Worthy Park – Mitch went very “snapshot of history” with this rum. Worthy Park from the year they reopened in 2005 was quite the treat. For me, this rum was trending towards those classic Worthy Park notes you know and love now, but I could see there was still a bit of dialing in going on with it. But, as for education, this is a great one to show where rum has been.

Rum #6 – Australia 14 Year 2008ish Beenleigh – Mitch made us all wait to toast and this drink this together, a wonderful S. Pombe Beenleigh from the 5 years that the distllery utilized this yeast to create very flavorful rums. This one was like many of the Pombe’s I’ve had from them, just wonderful.

This was a great seminar and educational oppurtunity from Mitch and using these rums he walked everyone through a lot of the history and processes behind these distilleries, Main Rum, Scheer, in hopes of bringing more transparency to the rum category as well as more education for everyone around.

That was an incredible way to kick off Boston Rum Week, though we came in near the end as they have events from Sunday to Sunday. But, I had limited time and so after Mitch’s event we just rested as we had a full day the next day, The Grand Tasting.

Saturday came around and we had a good breakfast and lunch and prepared ourselves for the full day of The Grand Tasting and some seminars. Having never been to a rum festival before, a key tip given to me was that spit buckets are provided. Which I was very thankful for as there was far too much rum to taste and I did not want to be a drunken mess at any point during the day.

The Seminars:

There were 4 seminars to choose from throughout the day, for VIP members only with limited seating. I attended 3 of them as I wanted a chance to taste a few things on the floor.

Distiller’s Variables: A Deep Dive

(Photo above take by Jessie Fox)

Seminar #1 was a deep dive on distilling and was led by Dr. Robyn Smith of rum et al., Brett Steigerwaldt, head distillery of Lyon Rum, and was moderated by Robbie Honerkamp, currently a distillery at Richland Rum in Georgia. Brett led a tasting with 2 rums he brought to showcase how fermentation, specifically yeast, can impact rum. The first rum he had us taste was a “production style” rum using EC-1118 yeast. This rum was kind of a classic taste with a bit of minerality and was kind of a “baseline” of what distilleres like to use yeast wise for a variety of reasons. The 2nd rum he had us taste was a yeast trial using S. Pombe style yeast. S. Pombe is much harder to work with than the EC-1118 but, to my nose and and taste, was much fruitier and bright and made a much better product. Part of the tasting of these included Brett asking folks in the crowd what they would do with these , bottle them as is, overproof, age or blend? It was a great way to get into the mind of a producer of rum and really showcased how radical changing one part of the equation in rum can be.

For Robyn’s portion of the tasting, using her own rum as an example, she wanted to teach folks about cuts made by distillers while working. The short version is that when distilling a product there are heads, hearts, and tails. Distillers will usually pull the hearts based on taste to make their product as the heads and tails tend to have “undeseriable” flavors that you don’t want in your distillate. Now I may be broken, but I really enjoyed the flavors that the heads she presented to us. The hearts were quite good as well and were more approachable in terms of abv and flavor. She brought early tails so they did not taste too bad but I could detect the off notes here with a big dose of acetone. It was the first time I had tasted heads or tails in any way so it was a really great hands on learning experience about the science behind distilling and was an incredible seminar to be a part of.

Out of many … One Rum

Getting to learn about Jamaican rum from Ian Burrell (Global Rum Ambassador) was simply incredible. Ian talked about the history of rum in Jamaica, the GIs that protect it, some of his own history, and then we tasted with him one rum from every distillery on the island as he talked about the history of the distilleries for a little bit as well as the rum we were tasting. Ian is one of the best speakers and presenters I have been able to sit and listen to and so it was an incredibly engaging chat. If you are a rum fan, you have to hear Ian give a presentation one day.

Now, between the seminars I did make it down to the tasting floor and I was a bit overwhelmed if I am honest. Both by choice and noise. It was quite busy and I wanted to be judicious in what I was able to taste so we started to make our rounds and I promptly failed to take any pictures or document all the rums I tasted. But I can tell you there were some standouts. There was a table of just rums from Guadeloupe that you cannot buy in the US that I started at and had some lovely aged Bielle and some Distilleries Bonne-Mere. Both wonderful expressions in their own right. I sampled some of the new releases from Romaing Road including a very approachable 17 Year Jamaican DOK. I did not know you could make DOK approachable but it was a very good balance of taming the raw DOK and oak interaction. I tried Grander Cane Harvest finally and I would love to get myself a bottle in order to make some drinks with it. I also made sure to drink a little bit of Rum Et Al’s stuff as I really like what Robyn is doing and it should be supported. But, my standout rum from the show is a Norte Rum 970 Brandy Cask (Madeira) that was this wonderful explosion of fruit and vegatalness and spice that just played so well together. Mark me down as a big fan of rums from Madeira. In addition to the tasting floor, if you had a VIP badge, there was a “Unicorn Bar” on a another floor with harder to find bottles to drink. I will admit between the tasting floor, my activities, and the seminar’s, I never actually made it to the Unicorn Bar. But, from the pictures I saw of it, it had some pretty good rums available to drink.

Above is my favorite rum I tried and the only bottle I remembered to take a picture of.

Now in addition to the Grand Tasting room, the Rumcast was doing a live recording of an episode of their podcast. They were doing their annual rum fantasy draft, with a twist of inviting various folks at the tasting to come up and do short 10 minute interviews and make a pick for a “Boston Rum Week Team”. To my surprise, they asked me to come onto the show for the 1st time which I was floored by. I’ll let the episode speak for itself but my goal was to not make a fool of myself and just have a good converstion with John and Will.

Seminar #4: Funky Rums in Cocktails: The Bartender’s High Ester Challenge

Now I, an avid fan of High Ester rums in general, saw the title of this seminar and knew we had to catch some of it. Jen Akin from Spiribam and Frederic Yarm were the speakers of this seminar and were moderated by Dawn Aguilar. There was a lot of discussion between Fred and Jen about how to use such intense ingredients in cocktails and that balance was key. One of my favorite quotes from the talk was that Smith and Cross is the salt of the cocktail world, need a little bit of flavor, pour a little bit of Smith and Cross into the cocktail. In addition, the Seminar came with 3 cocktails to drink and discuss as the presentation went on.

A mad 5 hours of tasting, seminars, and rum. There is a lot of work that goes into making this happen, an entire team of folks in Boston headed by John Hsu and Lorri Hsu of Raising Glasses, who along with their Boston Rum Week team, all the brand reps and volunteers, put a lot of working into making this thing go and be the great time that it is. Having not been to any other rum festival, I can’t compare it. But, this was a fun enough time that I would and will be going back next year as the real fun of the Rum Festival is getting to meet so many great rum people who are the driving force behind what make the rum community such a joy to be a part of. Now sitting back home in Ohio, it feels like a whirlwind I need to recover from, but I would and will do it all over again.