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The history of rum is a colonial past permanently connected to slave plantations, politics and pirates. A Black entrepreneur and recording artist dreamed of setting a new course for rum with Pin Drop Rum Spirits Limited, a spirits company conceived at her kitchen table in Harbour Island.
“We wanted that name to let you know that it comes from this tiny dot in The Bahamas. But also, I envision that wherever the rum is in the world, you’ll see a pin on a map. That works for me,” says co-founder Ithalia Johnson.
Pin Drop Rum is now sold online in the Caribbean and 32 U.S. states. Johnson and co-owners Toby Tyler and Joe Elison teamed with the Bronfmans, a legendary name in the spirits business, to bring their rum to America in February.
“We needed to be connected to the right image and the right family with the right experience,” Johnson declares.
Friends Formulate a Pin Drop Dream
The idea for Pin Drop Rum Spirits Limited came to Johnson during conversations with Tyler. Her long-time friend and fellow musician was already recognized as a master rum blender.
Ellison had valuable contacts. Together, the three friends decided to start a company that could represent the ingenuity and determination of Harbour Island’s people.
“We had the opportunity. We had the person with experience and the drive to go for it. We needed the next thing, and rum was that for us,” says Johnson.
Harbour Island is often referred to as a pin drop of an island. Best known for its natural beauty and pink sand beaches, the island is three and a half miles long and slightly more than a mile wide.
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Johnson’s home, located off the northeast coast of Eleuthera Island, inspired the name for the Pin Drop Rum launched in September 2018.
“For us to know what we had, the first thing we had to do was enter it into competitions. We had to get it out there in Trinidad, Tobago and other places where people know rum,” Pin Drop’s co-owner adds.
Within four months, Pin Drop Rum’s founders knew they had more than a basement hobby with their small-bath dark rum. The new spirit produced from a blend of aged 10 and 12-year-old rums aged in bourbon white oak barrels received rave reviews from the Caribbean Rum Journal and praise from experts.
It holds the 2022 People’s Choice Award for Best Caribbean Rum, the Rum XP Gold/Best in Class from the Miami Rum Renaissance Festival’s International Rum Expert Panel and a St. Barth’s Best New Rum Gold Medal.
Johnson shares what verifying Pin Drop Rum’s quality means to the founders. “It’s confirmation that you are going in the right direction. It’s not a dream. It’s not in your head. People are telling you, ‘Yes, keep going. You have something worth sharing.’ It means respect, and it was important to us.”
In the Midst of a Rum Renaissance
The respect for the Harbour Island company’s hand-bottled rum made it the choice of locals when the COVID pandemic shut down international commerce. Pin Drop Rum’s reputation attracted the attention of former Seagram Company Ltd. CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. and his family.
They got out of the spirits industry 20 years ago but returned to partner with Pin Drop Rum’s owners. “So they came to us after we went to them looking for advice on how to proceed with our business. That was perfect. Joe brought that connection together. Toby makes the rum, and I did all the other stuff,” says Johnson.
The Harbour Island native had already handled the administrative work of getting permits, licenses, and other legal requirements for setting up Pin Drop Rum Spirits Ltd. With Edgar’s son Aaron taking the lead as Pin Drop Rum’s CEO, the company moved into the U.S. market in February 2024.
Pin Drop Rum’s managing partner, Aaron Bronfman, commented on the launch in a February news release on PR Newswire. “The spirits industry is entering a new era of exploration, which is leading to heightened interest in the rum category and its versatility. With the arrival of the Rum Renaissance and fans embracing the spirit like never before, Pin Drop Rum offers a unique style to experience ultra-premium rum from an unlikely place.”
Pin Drop Rum’s creators felt it was crucial to keep production and shipment of their rum in the Bahamas. Johnson states that the Bronfmans understood how much Harbour Island’s origins matter.
“We established that from the very beginning. Our goal was to stay as authentic and close to the island as possible. They knew the story and wanted to be a part of it. They didn’t want to change the story.”
The six years it took to get Pin Drop Rum ready for international sales gave the owners time to perfect the branding and the bottle. The design pays tribute to the Bahamian national flag with aqua, yellow and black colors. Johnson’s image is on the sleek black bottle, which features golden palms and the blue of tropical waters.
Pin Drop is Rum For Its Time
A CNN Business report this past March detailed the growing trend of Hollywood actors, famous musicians and professional athletes investing in spirits. Their star power increased the public’s fascination with tequila, vodka and other alcoholic beverages.
Pin Drop Rum’s co-owner recognized the increasing interest as an opportunity for The Bahamas, where rum is rooted in the culture. “There was an opening in the world for rum. Vodka had its day. Patron and all the tequilas, they all had their time. We don’t feel rum has had its stage yet,” says Johnson.
Her research of rum’s history expanded Johnson’s knowledge of the spirit’s links to slavery and sugar production. Africans were forced to toil on Caribbean and West Indies plantations, where they cut sugarcane stalks, extracted juice, and boiled it into sugar crystals.
In the 1600s, the molasses by-product was being fermented into rum. It became the drink of choice for American colonists and British sailors. Pin Drop Rum’s owners hope to change the face of the spirit with a Black, Bahamian-owned rum company.
“That’s kind of a reclaiming. If we can get more local people to go into this business, take this journey and say this is the new face of rum, that’s inspirational. That will take time,” Johnson acknowledges.
Pin Drop Rum’s founders went on an adventure of discovery in the search for the right rums to make the blend they bottle in Nassau. They traveled to Caribbean countries with distilleries and did months of sampling to get the desired taste.
“You go into these warehouses, and they’re all these different ages of rum. They all taste different. So, the first thing was to pick which 10 year and which 12 year to mix together,” says Johnson.
The selected rums shipped to a Nassau distillery in the bourbon white oak barrels are mixed with the right amount of water and sugar. Tyler oversees the blending and bottling process.
“Before it goes into the bottle, it is checked personally. We still do small batches, and that is how we control the quality. We are making sure that what we send to people is what we really want,” Johnson asserts.
So, what taste did Tyler, Elison and Johnson want to bring to the rum market? A rum that is so smooth and sophisticated it needs no sodas, fruit juices or other dilutions.
“It was very important to have one you could sip, one that you could have straight with an ice cube, maybe with some lime. Not sugary and not needing to be blended with other stuff to taste good was the most important thing,” Johnson continues.
The company describes Pin Drop Rum’s taste as both elegant and funky. The aroma of the blended 10 and 12-year-old pot and column stilled rums “carries notes of apricot, mango and candied tropical fruit.”
Johnson recommends drinking her rum with a touch of history. “We have our signature drink, which is called Rum & Rain. It’s fresh coconut water with Pin Drop. It’s from the days of pirates when they would put rum in the water to preserve it.”
Johnson and her partners celebrate Pin Drop Rum’s Bahamian heritage in every way possible. The Black bottles must travel through Nassau to reach the U.S. and other markets. “It costs a lot more to do that, but it needs to be shipped from here to everywhere else in the world. It needs to have that Bahamas stamp on it,” the entrepreneur explains.
Inspiring Bahamians with Pin Drop Rum
The creative energy that drove Johnson and her friends to start Pin Drop Rum Spirits Ltd. had already motivated the singer, songwriter and guitar player to build a career in the music world.
She sang and led bands around New York and recorded more than nine studio albums. The Ithalia Johnson Band still performs on Harbour Island. Her latest album, “Light up the World,” connects her previous recordings’ in the rock, punk and soul genres.
The mother of two moved back home to Harbour Island primarily to guarantee her 12-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son understand the can-do spirit of Bahamian people.
“We’re very independent people; we never had a plantation that worked here. From the beginning, slavery didn’t work here. The cane didn’t grow,” Johnson contends. “Bahamians in these small communities will have five different jobs. We have this spirit of you do what you have to do. So we have hundreds of years of doing whatever works, whatever fits.”
Pin Drop Rum’s owners knew their company needed a deep-rooted connection to Harbour Island and its people that goes beyond commerce. As a PTA president and local environmentalist, Johnson makes community-building a priority.
“I now represent the entrepreneurs in my country. We are called on to be a part of everything, from trade schools to environmental concerns. Being an environmentalist is part of my functioning with my children’s school. And all of that ties in with the rum that I can proudly say here it is, and I stand behind it.”
The company’s founders dream of a future where they can open a distillery on Harbour Island. “We would love to have our distillery here and do small batches from farm to bottle. We want to continue, have other spirits join the list, and build a brand representative of The Bahamas,” says Johnson.
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Representing their country with the award-winning Pin Drop Rum already generates pride. Johnson’s uncle doesn’t drink but keeps the bottle she gave him on his mantle. “Every time somebody goes to his house, he shows them the rum. That has never happened in the life of a 75-year-old man in this country.”
Johnson and her partners hope the success of Pin Drop Rum inspires other Bahamians to join their journey of reclaiming the spirit’s history.
“I hope we see more rum makers from here, both women and Blacks. What does that mean in terms of my understanding of the history of rum? It says we are changing the face of that, as well and making it something we can reach.”
Go to Pin Drop Rum Spirits Ltd. online for the latest information on The Bahamian spirit. You can also follow @pindroprum on Instagram.
