In the summertime of 2020, after the homicide of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officerer Derek Chauvin sparked protests and conversations about racism, Maison Ferrand introduced it might be renaming Plantation rum, two years on and the identify persists, Drinks Worldwide caught up with Alexandre Gabriel for the replace.
That is an excerpt from an extended interview with Alexandre Gabriel that seems within the Drinks Worldwide Rum 2022 complement.
“Altering a model identify that’s been in existence for thus a few years, is quite a bit like altering the identify of a 30-year-old particular person and having to be sure that identify just isn’t in existence wherever else on the planet,” says Gabriel.
“It’s a frightening and prolonged course of. Plantation rum has enlisted a number of branding businesses within the US, the UK and France to work on this. The workforce thought it had a reputation final yr however discovered it was blocked by a number one international drinks firm. This put the method again six months.
“Two different names are at present being checked and registered for a patent within the 100 nations the place it has distribution, which takes time. The workforce is regularly working with a US branding company on different identify choices simply in case the 2 others are blocked.
“We hope we are going to get the inexperienced gentle on the 2 present names that we’ve registered however can’t give a precise date. We now have a workforce actively engaged on this and we are going to share an replace as quickly as attainable.”
The unique identify was impressed by Gabriel’s childhood in rural France.
“I grew up on a household’s farm and winery in south Burgundy. I reside on a farm now. The phrase Plantation is a French farming time period. It’s a place the place vegetation is planted and grown from the land. I began the model over 20 years in the past after spending time in Haiti and Saint Lucia the place I fell in love with rum. In the Caribbean, a farm is most frequently referenced as a plantation. We named our new rum mission after a reference that I had from my upbringing and from the farming I noticed within the Caribbean, with none malice, and by no means with any intent to make anybody really feel marginalised.
“At Plantation Rum, our values and ethos are about sharing, tolerance and variety. Collectively, as all of us be taught and develop, we all know that the time has come for us to evolve our model identify protecting the identical scrumptious rum within the bottle that we like to make. We’re fortunate to have the belief and love of many rum followers who take pleasure in sharing and consuming our rum.
“We genuinely care and don’t take this without any consideration and are doing this with all of them in thoughts.
