OUR
HISTORY

 

Rum & India

A common misconception is that rum was born in the Caribbean. In fact, sugar cane (the raw ingredient from which rum is distilled) is native to Papua New Guinea but was cultivated in India as early as 6000BC, with Ayurvedic records of rum production as early as 7th Century. 

Even the word ‘sugar’ is believed to be derived from the Sanskrit word ‘Shakara’ meaning ‘gravel’ or ‘sand’ (today we use the word granulated).

EXCEPTIONAL QUALITY

As the taste for sugar grew during the colonial era, the Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese traders carried cuttings across the globe and soon sugar was being grown and refined on a global scale with the by-product of sugar-refining, molasses, being fermented and distilled into varying styles of rum with vastly different characteristics.

We’ve created Five Rivers for the western palate in a similar way to gin, using Indian botanicals; cardamom, coriander, cassia, ginger and clove, distilled into a dry spiced rum with no added sugar.

Taj Sanghera, Founder

the spirit of a country

India is one of the largest sugar-producing country in the world and both sugar and rum play an important role in our daily lives. Most of the rum produced in India is drunk locally and is of a lower quality. We wanted to exceed expectations by creating a rum of exceptional quality which would appeal to a western palate.