Foursquare Distillery in Barbados swept the board at the 2021 International Spirits Challenge. Its Redoubtable rum was named Supreme Champion after dazzling the panel of experts in a series of blind tastings. It also won Rum Producer of the Year thanks to its haul of a trophy, two double gold medals and three golds. There was individual glory for fourth-generation owner Richard Seale too, as he was named Master Distiller of the Year – a first for a rum producer.

You could forgive Seale if he was anything less than modest about his achievement, but he has no time for self congratulation, as his focus is always firmly on the progress of the overall rum category. “It’s more than pushing our brand,” says Seale. “We all have a twin objective of working on our brand but also working on the category. Other categories can be a little more luxurious – if you’re a great scotch whisky or bourbon brand, you can focus on your brand [whereas] many of us in rum have a dual role to not only be strong for your brand but for your category too.”

For Seale, the industry plaudits are nevertheless a welcome recognition of a mission that he began two decades ago: striving for rum to be as revered as any other elite spirit in the world.

“There’s nothing inferior about a leading rum producer versus a leading scotch producer. All the elements are there. It’s always been my mission that we must place rum where it is. Maybe the one element that’s not as pervasive is the investment.” That one missing element became a part of Foursquare’s mission, and the distillery has become a jewel in the region’s crown.

“At Foursquare, we’ve always prided ourselves as a complete showpiece for rum. Seeing a distillery operating in a pristine condition, with floors that you can eat off, that’s all about sending a global message that rum can compete.”

Having grown up during what he calls the “grim rum and Coca Cola era of the ’70s and ’80s,” the message seems to be being received and the mission is going rather well. Seale’s life has been spent in rum. As a member of one of the category’s most eminent families, he recalls “school holidays were the beginning of work”. 

“I was always raised to join the family business. It wasn’t that necessarily I was going to be involved in making rum. My father would tell you, ‘my grandfather was involved in rum’, he was a salesman who didn’t get into the technical part of rum, we hired blenders all through his period. So, it was never that I would necessarily have a role in rum or be involved in the making of rum – I might have been, god forbid, a marketer.”

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Seale took to distillation and officially became the fourth generation to join RL Seale in 1993 as the company made its biggest purchase ever – Martin Doorly’s brands. Up to that point, RL Seale produced mainstream rums for the domestic market, like Barbados’ most popular brand, ESA Field. The purchase of Doorly’s significantly increased the company’s scope and set in motion changes that would form the high calibre brand we know today.

“There’s nothing like the largest investment to focus your attention,” says Seale. “It’s amazing how one investment leads to another. When we bought Martin Doorly’s, we realised that we wanted to get into export, because up to then we didn’t really export anything. All of our years, we’re selling core, mainstream brands, but Martin Doorly’s is a prestigious brand, a brand which was very dominant in the 1970s.”

Charged with the stewardship of a premium and international brand, the company’s focus would shift. “That’s when we had to think seriously about investing in stocks and thinking seriously about investing in stocks means you have to think carefully about distilling the stocks. You can’t depend on other distilleries’ investment decisions and pricing.”

A year a er the Martin Doorly’s purchase, the company bought a 17th-century sugar estate called Foursquare. “[The estate] stopped making rum in the 19th century and spent the 20th century making sugar and molasses before it closed in 1988. We bought that in 1994, refurbished and started making rum in 1996.”

BECOMING DISTILLER

With the distillery established, it was only natural that Seale would assume the role of the distiller.

“We were always a small enough company that it wasn’t like we were going to hire other people, so we’d have to go and do it all ourselves. I think maybe if we were a bigger company I might’ve just stayed in management and hired people, but we were small enough that if we didn’t do it ourselves, we weren’t going to be able to afford to do it.

“I looked a er the distillation. I grew up around rum, so I knew about distillation, but I’ve always tried to explain to people, the point about distillation is not about knowing distillation but knowing the rum. You can be an expert on distillation but if you don’t know the rum is shit, it’s going to be no help to you.”

Captain of a new distillery, Seale began to lay down stock for ageing ready for the international market. “We started exporting seriously in 2000 or 2001 and we launched Doorly’s around this period. It was perfect timing because just a er we start exporting, we create this new product, Doorly’s XO, and it does really well for us.”

Doorly’s XO, a blended aged rum matured in sherry casks, proved to be an international hit and vindicated the company’s move into the premium export market.

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“That success leads to the next step, it leads to purchasing more sherry casks, which leads to purchasing Madeira casks. That leads to thinking, if we’re doing well with a six-year-old rum, I need to invest and create a 10 year old.

“We didn’t sit down one day and think, ‘let’s make Foursquare Redoubtable’. One day we made Doorly’s XO and that did really well, it put us on the map and impressed people at those early rum shows. Those sales are what makes you make the next investment. Increase the stock and suddenly you can sell more 10-year-old rums and you develop a 12 year old and a 14 year old.”

Since those first releases, the rum climate has developed, spurred in part by the excellent rums that have rolled out of the Foursquare distillery. But Seale asserts that “innovation is one of the most abused words in our industry”, he hasn’t reinvented the wheel, he says.

“It’s a question of emphasis. It’s not that the rum-making has changed, but we can suddenly think about things it would be harder to think about 20 years ago; doing a 14-year-old rum, releasing cask strength rums, investing in cane juice rums. Twenty-five years ago, you’d be hard pressed to find a rum on the shelf for more than £25. Now we can do all those things.”

Having helped re-establish Barbados on the world stage as a source of exceedingly fine rum, Seale has turned his attention to protecting that standing. Alongside compatriots like Mount Gay, he’s created a Geographical Indication for Barbados, to protect the generational learnings and heritage that have helped Seale produce the world’s most elite rums.

“We have a very strong philosophy that we must work within the Barbados style and the Foursquare style. If I had grown up in Patagonia, I might be the same person, but I wouldn’t be making the same rum. That’s the generational knowledge, you have the assistance from the blenders who came before me and their experience and this is invaluable because then you learn rum.”