Meet Marc Farrell of Ten To One Rum

Marc Farrell, founder and CEO of the award winning Ten To One rum brand has joined the vanguard of modern rum blenders who are making enthusiasts and cocktail creators excited about this unique line of rums. He shared some time with Alcohol Professor to talk about the past, present, and future of the Ten To One rum line.

In previous interviews you have covered the origin of the Ten To One rum line. Please tell us about your experience of watching the brand grow over the past four years.

The experience overall has been immensely rewarding, gratifying, and humbling. It’s obviously incredible for any entrepreneur to have the opportunity to bring something to market. That’s only amplified when you have a chance to do that with a business that has been created through the lens of who you are, where you’re from, and the things that you care about. Having Ten To One be so closely tied to my culture—not just Trinidadian culture but Caribbean culture as a whole, adds an entirely different dimension to the level of excitement and gratitude I feel while watching the brand come to life.

One of the missions behind Ten To One rum is “Challenging Expectations”. Please tell us more about that.

Challenging expectations has honestly been a through-line for the brand since its inception. We always talk about being constant in everything that we do. Starting with the quality of the liquid first and foremost, we say that the mission of Ten To One is challenging consumer expectations and changing the way that people taste, experience, and talk about rum. For me, there’s so much magic in reframing those expectations for consumers from a liquid perspective, first and foremost, but also, by extension, through everything else we do. From our packaging to the community that we have curated to the content that we have created, all our efforts really play off this idea of challenging expectations to bring new energy, new storytelling, and new experiences to a host of different customers.

The Ten To One White rum won a gold medal at NYISC competition in 2023, what are you doing differently with this rum that helps elevate the minimally aged rum category?

We’re proud of the impression that our white rum has made on the national and global stage. When I was starting off on the journey to start Ten To One, there was a question around whether you’d even try to create or elevate white rum versus aged rum. For us, the answer was yes. If you looked at the way that most consumers have thought about white rum for a long time, they associated it with one specific product in the category and had a narrow set of expectations. So, for us, the white rum was an amazing opportunity to, again, reframe that positioning, free that expectation, and show something that really kind of leans into craft. Our white rum is a pan-Caribbean blend: Jamaican pot still alongside Dominican pot still, two very different rums that pair exceptionally well together. And now, all of a sudden, you’re having a conversation about things like the sedation method, provenance, terroir, even the weight, viscosity, and mouthfeel—all of which add these really unique characteristics and dimensions that have been very new and eye-opening to many consumers.

How long did it take you to create the Pan-Caribbean blends for your rum line?

It took quite a while. We were probably in development in one form or another for 18 months to almost two years prior to launching in the summer of 2019. So again, there’s a lot of trial and error in building up your own personal point of view on what profiles you’re inspired by or what things you want to avoid until you finally felt that you had a product that could not just stand on its own but really stand head-and-shoulders above many other offerings that have historically been tied to the category.

What were some of the obstacles you overcame during this process?

There are enough obstacles that they could sit down and write their own memoirs. It started with thinking through how best to tackle that early product development process to overcome a fair amount of the naysaying and negativity. This is a part of any entrepreneurial journey, meeting a fair amount of questioning around whether you have the chops and you have what it takes to bring something to market. Consumers challenge any product, but spirits are a notoriously difficult category. Everything, including product development, thinking through the supply chain, securing investors, and figuring out a route to market, is fraught with peril. All of those were early obstacles. I think one of your primary objectives as an entrepreneur, as the evangelist-in-chief, is to turn all those naysayers into promoters and supporters of the brand. So, it was very much a roll up your sleeves endeavor in the early days. For us, liquid-to-lips has always been our best ambassador and our best champion.

During the development phase you made the choice to not use additives when blending your rum line. Would you please tell us more about that decision?

That was honestly a very easy decision. I’ve always been of the school of thought that great rum should stand on its own. I think if you lean into the craft in the right way and understand how to build that sort of Ten To One profile that I’ve mentioned, you don’t need any of the other extras to land on an extraordinary final product. None of the Ten To One expressions have any additives of any kind—no added sugar, color, or flavoring agents. That personal philosophy dovetails well with what I think is a growing expectation on the part of the consumer. Many consumers out there are now looking to better understand what’s in that bottle or what’s in that glass. They’re looking for cleaner alternatives with a clearer sense of provenance and a more authentic articulation, and Ten To One delivers on all of those fronts.

Earlier this year you released a new Ten To One Artists Edition to your portfolio. Please share with our readers the information about this rum and the artist who is featured along with it.

Black History Month 2023, we partnered with an incredible Brooklyn-based artist called Devin B. Johnson, who commissioned an original workforce called Inner Glow focused on celebrating the Black and African diaspora, depicting a figure looking off into the future with an optimistic gaze. We thought it was an amazing opportunity to shine a light on someone else who is moving the culture forward and creating in their own space. I think this idea of a platform has been core to Ten To One from the very beginning. We love doing collaborations; we love working alongside others, whether they’re in spirits, art, fashion, music, you name it. There are several avenues. Black History Month felt like the opportune time to work on telling a different story alongside someone else and bringing this product to life.

It has been interesting to see how the Ten To One rums are being used by bartenders. Have there been any cocktails that surprised you?

Tons! One of the real calling cards of Ten To One is its versatility. I hear bartenders remark on the fact that they can almost create anything using both our aged and white rum expressions. We love leaning into this idea of classic cocktails made better with rum. Whether you’re looking at an old fashioned and a Manhattan, a negroni (white negronis with Ten To One white rum are my current favorite), a martini, a rum-arita, or an espresso martini, the list goes on when you think about opportunities to lean into that versatility to create some really exceptional cocktails. We’ve been actively promoting consumers to challenge themselves to open the apertures of what they think rum can deliver, testing out some of those classic cocktails made better with rum and better with Ten To One.

When imbibing your rums, do you have any preferred cocktails and food pairings that you would recommend?

We love any opportunity to show how our rum and cocktails created with it shine in very unexpected ways. We’ve done omakase dinners highlighted with Ten To One cocktail pairings; anything that leans into that fresh citrus space pairs exceptionally well alongside our white rum. Our dark rum, which has more of those notes of baking spice and cooked foods, and a little bit of that toffee caramel characteristic, goes well for sipping occasions after dinner, dessert-based occasions, and a whole host of other occasions to create around those. We’ve done pairings from everything from Asian cuisine to French to Latin inspired and the list goes on.

What is next for the Ten To One rum line? Do you have any projects in development you would like to share with our readers?

Continuing to do the heavy lifting and the hard work, we are trying to bring it to as many places around the country as we possibly can. We’re in 22 markets today, and hopefully in the not-too-distant future, the rum is truly available nationwide at a bar, restaurant, or store near you. We obviously have ambitions from an international perspective as well, which we hopefully see bearing fruit heading into 2024. From a product innovation perspective, people should keep their eyes and ears peeled for some new drops coming this year. We have one planned that’s going to be an exceptional sipper that folks will be really excited about, and perhaps even an ultra-limited release from our reserve line that may be on deck. A couple of surprises on the innovation front are coming next year, too. Definitely stay tuned – we plan to continue rolling up our sleeves and expanding the Ten To One universe as broadly as we can.

Profiles, SpiritsPaul SenftJanuary 24, 2024rumComment