Meet the Producer: J. Gow | 2021
When talking about rum there’s no escaping pirates, what better name for a rum distillery than your local historic pirate!
Named after Orkneys very own 18th century pirate John Gow. J. Gow Rum distillery sits metres away from the sea on Lamb Holm, a 0.15 square mile uninhabited island. Which makes it probably the smallest rum producing island in the world. John Gows short, violent career began in Amsterdam in the Netherlands and ended in Orkney. He was imprisoned, tried and hanged. Not once, but twice, (after the rope snapped the first time) at London’s execution dock on the 11th of June 1725. He was one of the last pirates hanged in London.
After returning to Orkney from Edinburgh to re-join the family business in 2013. I worked several years for the Orkney Wine Company (making fruit wines). With my dad ultimately priming me to take over the business. Instead of taking over I stole half of the building, put a 2000L pot still in it and started making rum in 2017.
Every process is done on site at the distillery. Molasses is imported, mixed with water and yeast and fermented to around 8%, for 3 to 14 days depending on the recipe. It’s then distilled twice taking the final spirit to around 65% ABV. The rum is then aged and spiced (for the spiced rum) or left in casks for several years to mature. Once ready it’s bottled and labelled by hand (even the label designs are hand drawn by me).
We produce several different rums with various recipes and fermentation techniques. Some are made with backset (waste left in the still from a stripping run) instead of water in the ferment and some also have a percentage of dunder added. Which is bacterially fermented still waste that helps add esters to the spirit creating heavier more complex rums.
Our first release J. Gow Spiced rum was launched in October 2017. A dry spiced rum with only 5g of sugar per litre. It uses 7 different whole spices 2 of which are top secret and grown in Orkney. In 2018 at the International wine and spirit competition it was awarded silver outstanding for the rum on its own and it won the trophy for the rum & ginger beer category winning it out right.
November 2018 saw the release of our first cask aged rum Fading Light. Aged in chestnut casks for a minimum of 2 years. It’s a pure single rum with no added sugar or colouring. Chestnut was chosen for being more porous, it pairs perfectly with Orkneys cold climate. Oak has an angels share of around 1% in Orkney where as chestnut is around 9% meaning you get a slightly faster maturation.
In October 2020 we released our first single cask/cask strength rum Hidden Depths Vol. 1, aged 3 years, bottled at 53.2%, which sold out in under 2 weeks.
Revenge is our new 3 year old pure single Scottish rum, launched in April 2021. Aged in ex-bourbon and virgin oak casks for three years. A Blend of our HD and DS marques. Light funk, acidic fruit and caramel on the nose. Stone fruit, spice and toffee on the palate with over ripe peaches on the finish. A rich and deeply flavoured rum with no added sugar, artificial flavours or colourings.
I hope that in the future, as a category we can move away from classing rum by colour, as it’s so easy to add molasses or colouring to an unaged rum and call it dark rum. And move towards classing it by still type, fermentation/maturation length, cask type etc. It will help explain to customers exactly what’s in the bottle. Scottish rum is still in its infancy, but there’s a lot of great stuff being made here already, the festival will be an ideal opportunity to get to know these passionate producers right on our doorstep.
