Meet the Producer: Askival | 2021
The idea was simple, make a rum from the isle of Rùm. A concept that had floated around the ferries and pubs of the west coast of Scotland for what seemed like years. The journey was not so simple and maybe the reason as to why it had for those many years only been an idea discussed with a dram in hand. However, in the spring of 2020, we moved away from the place of ideas deciding on action and the journey to Askival Rum.
We have Askival Botanical Rum (named after Rùm’s tallest mountain) as our first step to fulfilling this ambition of creating a pure Scottish rum on the isle of rùm. Askival Botanical Rum is a blend of local water and 5-year-old Caribbean rums infused with wild botanicals and spices foraged and inspired from the Isle of Rùm.
Our botanicals have been chosen to amplify the existing flavours of our chosen rum to help marry the two locations and create a clean and complex drink that can be drunk neat, with ginger ale or with our line of perfect serve cocktails (which are soon to be released). When creating our rum, we wanted our flavours to teach the drinker about the island and its history. The footprints left by previous inhabitants as well as show off the landscape of where we are based.
Meadowsweet runs along the banks of Kinloch river winding down through the glens on the island. Traces of meadowsweet have been discovered in excavated pots on Rùm linking its use to the mead making process, no doubt as an aromatic. As mead is a drink synonymous with the Viking's we most definitely cannot state a claim to being the first on Rùm to make an alcoholic beverage with meadowsweet. Meadowsweet helps enhance the natural vanillin present in the rum and brings clean floral notes.
Roasted Kelp represents the coastline as well as the deep history that kelp has with the island and the MacLean Clansman that farmed it here. Eventually, the price of kelp rocketed during the Napoleonic wars and then sadly crashed after the Battle of Waterloo resulting in the clearing of the tenants. From a flavour perspective, our roasted kelp brings comforting saline depth and notes of dark chocolate.
Spruce represents the more recent years of the island. The reforestation of Kinloch Village and castle estate in 1900 is one of the best examples of reforesting in the Hebrides. That may be because when the Bulloughs (a wealthy Victorian family) bought the island, they covered the entirety of Kinloch Village in soil imported from Ayrshire to create a more verdant landscape. This was the first botanical we stumbled upon during our initial search to make a rum from Rùm. This both enhances and brings bright and clean citrus notes that are prevalent in Askival.
