Ten to One founder aims to change people’s perception of rum

When you deliberation of rum, what comes to mind? A strawberry daiquiri? A piña colada with a cocktail umbrella? Marc-Kwesi Farrell ’03 thinks determination is simply a batch much to rum than that, and he’s connected a ngo to reinvent the tone arsenic a versatile, top-shelf drink. 

“If you look astatine rum today, it is saddled with this overly narrow, somewhat caricatured presumption of what the tone is meant to represent,” explains Farrell, a autochthonal of Trinidad and Tobago who launched Ten to One Rum successful New York City successful 2019. “There is this cognition of rum arsenic a lower-end tone for your sugary spring-break cocktails.” But cocktails made with Ten to One, helium says—think rum negroni oregon rum cucumber collins—reflect the “dynamism, vitality, and uniqueness that comes with the cloth of Caribbean culture.”

When helium arrived successful Cambridge arsenic a first-year student, Farrell did not expect to extremity up successful the spirits industry. “I was a 16-year-old erstwhile I got to MIT, and I don’t cognize if determination are a batch of 16-year-olds who truly know, necessarily, what it is they privation to bash successful life,” helium says, laughing. Farrell majored successful chemic engineering but says his vulnerability to finance, economics, and concern astatine the Institute helped him signifier the imagination of starting his ain company. 

To larn the ropes, helium began his vocation successful absorption consulting. He did a stint successful backstage equity, earned a master’s successful exertion argumentation astatine the University of Cambridge and an MBA astatine Harvard, and launched his archetypal startup successful sports and media, which helium says saw archetypal occurrence but didn’t standard the mode he’d hoped. Then Farrell joined Starbucks, rising to go vice president of planetary retail and beverage innovation. 

Serving arsenic an enforcement for the world’s largest coffeehouse concatenation renewed his ain consciousness of purpose, and helium decided to motorboat a marque that would grant his Caribbean roots. “When I deliberation astir Caribbean culture, we person this uncanny quality to activate celebration. It truly is simply a mode of beingness for us,” says Farrell. “Rum plays a relation successful truthful galore of those celebrations. It truly is portion of the fabric, portion of the essence of what we see to beryllium solemnisation successful the Caribbean.” 

Farrell named his startup Ten to One to wage homage to the West Indies Federation, which agreed 10 Caribbean countries from 1958 to 1962. Although rum tin beryllium recovered successful astir sugar-producing regions of the world—it is produced by fermenting and past distilling sugarcane foodstuff oregon molasses—its root is attributed to the Caribbean. 

The institution presently sells 2 high-quality rums sourced from immoderate of the astir chiseled and superior producers passim the region, present disposable successful 15 US states. The acheronian mentation is simply a blend of rums from Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic; the achromatic is simply a premix of rum from the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. Ten to One besides sells limited-edition releases, specified arsenic a 17-year-old single-cask reserve. 

Although the marque is simply a comparative newcomer, Ten to One has received astir 70 awards arsenic of 2022, making it the astir decorated rum successful the US. In October 2021, singer-songwriter Ciara joined the institution arsenic capitalist and co-owner. While specified archetypal successes person been gratifying, Farrell says helium is astir excited to alteration the mode radical deliberation astir rum—not conscionable for his company, but for the industry. 

“When I deliberation astir what occurrence looks like, whether that’s three, five, 10 years down the path, my anticipation is that we are the marque that has go synonymous with shifting the cognition of the rum category,” helium says, overmuch similar however Starbucks reinvented the coffeeshop. “I’m truly hoping that Ten to One tin beryllium that successful the satellite of rum.”