Rehashing CBD spirits
The English distiller working to ‘de-sensationalise’ cannabis-infused rum
Of all the novel ingredients to hit the drinks market in the past few years, CBD and cannabis-derived products have perhaps been some of the most pervasive and widely utilised, from health drinks to flavoured rums. But a distiller in the Channel Islands is attempting to set his cannabis-infused product apart from others on the market.
Indica Rum, a blended spirit that features rum distilled with buds from the cannabis plant species of the same name, is the latest release from the Channel Island Liquor Company. It opened its first distillery in Guernsey in June 2016, has won multiple awards for its Wheadon’s Rock Samphire and Pink Grapefruit gins, and opened a second site, the Sail Loft Distillery in Jersey, in November 2019.
The company’s co-founder Luke Wheadon had been working on Indica Rum for two years before taking it to market. “It was really about wanting to innovate in the liquor space,” he says. “As a gin distiller I have always been fascinated with the flavour imparted by botanicals and in the last few years I have distilled more than 100 ingredients.”
To make Indica, the distillery uses a blend of rums aged eight to 10 years from Nicaragua, Panama, Barbados and Dominican Republic. Some of the liquid is separated and distilled with Indica buds before being mixed back into the aged blend. Wheadon says the terpenes from the Indica make for a “rich and distinctive” botanical rum, and its bespoke packaging earned it accolades in the 2020 World Rum Awards.
In his experimentation with Indica as a botanical, Wheadon worked with the team at Original Alternative, a CBD product manufacturer which grows organic Indica plants in Guernsey, and settled on the Pink Kush varietal.
He says, “We have approached the Indica plant as we would any botanical and use our skills as a distillery to extract the best flavour profiles with the terpenes as possible. This is not about sensationalising cannabis or CBD but is all about the incredible flavour of Indica harmonising with our aged rum blend to produce a true botanical rum.”
Other CBD spirits to come out of the UK recently include Top CBD Spirits Spiced Rum, which uses an unaged rum distilled in Scotland and features premium full spectrum CBD alongside other botanicals, and the Hemp Rum from Cornish brand Dead
Man’s Fingers, which is infused with another cannabis species, Sativa.
For his part, Wheadon is excited by the experimentation on the UK rum scene, particularly with the emergence of new distillers and more botanical rums. “I believe the consumer is becoming better educated,” he says, “but I also believe that the industry has to work much harder to get beyond some of the poor rum products that have led sales in the sector in recent times and the way in which that has affected the consumer’s perception.”