Born to Rum
Black Ven Rum - Bronte Oates Photography
Black Ven Distillery is a family-run award-winning distillery in Lyme Regis, owned by husband and wife team, John and Sandy Tucker. After meeting them at Dorset Spring Show earlier this year, we were intrigued by their promise of truly British rum - so Bethany Piper sat down with them to find out more.
Tell us the story behind Black Ven Distillery?
We moved our family from Bath to Lyme Regis in 2010 when our daughters, Charlotte and Annabel,
were seven and three. We were lucky to find a home with a large garden and an artist’s studio perfect for our distillery. We eventually built an eco-warehouse amongst the orchard. John enjoys drinking brown spirits and has always enjoyed whisky, bourbon and dark rum. He wanted to drink a wholly British-produced dark rum but couldn’t find one that he enjoyed. Undeterred, he set about producing his own: one that would be British through and through and up there with the best dark rum around the globe. We spent many hours searching for a name for the company and one day realised we were looking at it - the distillery gazes out to Black Ven cliffs.
What is it that makes your rum stand out from the rest?
We’d say the biggest difference between Black Ven rum and other distilleries is that we distil our rum from premium molasses to ensure maximum flavour profile. We use the best quality bakers’ molasses available, sourced from the South West, which results in a fabulous
natural flavour. We don’t add any additional sugar, flavouring or colouring to the finished rum because we don’t have to.
When we set up Black Ven Distillery we were contacted by many overseas companies offering us Caribbean rum for import, who were shocked to hear we were going to distil our own small-batch handcrafted rum. Many people don’t realise that most British rum is actually not British - it’s instead imported Caribbean rum blended with other rums, British water, or spices, then re-branded. At Black Ven, everything except our French oak is sourced within the UK.
For our bottle design, we worked with Jack Price, an ex-Woodroffe pupil from Colyton, East Devon. We gave him a simple design brief to create a visually eye-catching, modern, stylised image of the Black Ven Cliffs that would stand out on the shelf, and were thrilled with what he created. It was great to work with a young designer and support his portfolio when applying for his first job as a graduate, and we continue to support British businesses in this part of our production process by only sourcing our bottles domestically.
Ven Steadian Cocktail at Oyster & Fish House, Lyme Regis
Founders Sandy & John
How do you produce your rum, and what is the end result like?
Everything is handcrafted using artisan processes. We don’t have the space to use a forklift truck, so casks are moved by hand - probably about 50 steps between distillery and warehouse! When the rum is ready, bottling is also by hand. It takes many hours of cleaning, sterilising, filling, corking, sealing and hand-batch numbering to bottle our flagship Dark Oak-Aged Rum (50% ABV). At this stage, our dark rum has already been oak-aged for four and a half years in our eco-warehouse, which is where we let the sun work its magic for most of the year with just a small amount of heat needed in the winter months to keep it maturing. A eureka moment also resulted in an even better finishing process which increases its complexity to that of a 10-year-old rum. We aren’t aware of any other British Rum Distillery maturing like this currently.
On the first sip, this rum is almost akin to a whisky, although don’t be fooled - it’s definitely dark rum! On the second sip, it mellows to luxurious notes of coffee, caramel and vanilla with a very satisfying finish. We were thrilled that it was awarded Taste of West Gold and Great Taste Awards, both in 2023. It’s delicious as an after dinner drink sipped neat, or with a small cube of ice. It pairs beautifully with a cheese board and we often use it in cooking as it has a fabulous depth of flavour. Try it in a Dark & Stormy or Old Fashioned cocktail.
Our second rum to be launched was our White Rum (40% ABV). It follows exactly the same meticulous processes as our dark rum, minus the oaking stage. It’s quickly developed a very loyal following since its release in late 2022 - everyone loves the natural ingredients used and the super smooth natural rum flavours that we’ve created. We love it in a Mojito - just superb!
It sounds like you’ve had fantastic reception from Dorset rum drinkers. Who are some of your biggest supporters?
Mark Hix at Oyster and Fish House has been particularly supportive and a guiding influence to us. We nervously gave him a bottle of Black Ven Dark Rum at Bridport Food Festival in May 2022 just to try - knowing it could go either way. Turns out he loves dark rum and hates spiced rum, so a good call by us - without hesitation he became our first customer and an avid supporter.
We are so lucky as a Dorset producer to have Caroline Richards from Dorset Food & Drink to lean on and ask for advice. Caz has created a wonderful family of Dorset artisan makers and producers who can access advice, support and knowledge that would have taken many years to gain, and organises fabulous artisan food and drink fairs throughout the year. We’re very excited that she's interested in starting a Dorset Producers Christmas Market and a Farmers’ Market in Lyme Regis.
Caz’s next event is the Dorset Food & Drinks annual Christmas Fair at Athelhampton House near Dorchester from 9 - 10 November - hopefully, we’ll see you there!
