Here’s an English rum made near Milton Keynes by someone with hospitality and culinary experience. Luke and Fiona Garnsworthy established Three Counties Spirits Co. and started making rum in September 2023. Luke’s background as a chef helped him a lot when it came to create Landlock, a molasses based rum made from scratch at their distillery. The Landlock range consists of a white rum, a Navy strength rum and a few other flavoured offerings. They also make bottled cocktails such as Mojito or Pina Colada.
Luke reached out to me to have a look at his rum and I agreed to write about his standard white rum. When I asked him details about his production process & brand he was more than accommodating and sent me a very informative paragraph that explains pretty much everything I wanted to know. I am going to simply quote what Luke said, as I don’t want to skim over any information – also it makes my life a lot easier. Here we go:
“All of our rum starts off life as sugarcane molasses. We use a product from Regus that comes in 25kg buckets meaning we don’t have an open IBC deteriorating over time. Each bucket is opened fresh. I then ferment this with a little Demerara sugar, water and live bakers yeast. A break from the yeast most people use, but I know it well from my chef days and I preferred the flavour after testing several yeasts. Fermentation takes place in a simply blue plastic barrel which is now wrapped in a blanket as we’re in winter. It takes about a week to reach 8-9% abv before being agitated and vented for another week. Basically I open the tank and stir the fermentation twice a day for a week. This allows the release of Co2 and sulphur.
The fermentation then gets pumped into Evelyn, our 250 litre still from the guys at iStill in the Netherlands. It’s another break from tradition (a trend with my rum) as it is a square, stainless steel piece of engineering. The only bit of copper is the parrot that the distillate runs through. I like this still because it has a level of automation in that I can set my cuts on the app on my phone and it will tell when to make the cuts. The fermentation is twice distilled with the first run being the classic stripping run. I run it hard and fast to get the alcohol out. Then onto the second run, the cutting run. I spent a lot of time working out my cuts. I took 140 small jars of around 350ml and tasted my way through most to determine where to cut. I blended a little bit of heads to bring in some fruity characters and sweetness. I also blended in a touch of tails to give a bit of that vegetal funk on the back end. My goal was to create a three dimensional white rum rather than something that’s flat and needs coke!
I tend to finish with a hearts distillate at around 75% abv that I then use to cut down to my White and Navy rums and blend with various flavours for the others.
My vision is to create products that flavour focused more than anything, having spent years as a chef this is natural for me. I want to try and do something different to everyone else, not to say that everyone else is doing it wrong. In fact I really enjoy many of the other English rums I just like to do things my way. I may start barrel aging this year but to be honest I think it will be hard to compete with the big boys with the heritage and history, not to mention the warehouses of barrels aging. I have got an old bourbon barrel used by Puddingstone Distillery in Hertfordshire to age their gin which I’m experimenting with infusing rum with over 1, 2, 3 and 4 months. The 2 month one is really good!
I plan to expand into other spirits in the coming years with an idea already for English Bourbon style whiskey and an “interesting” vodka as I find it so boring.
So I should explain the name, Landlocked Rum. The name has three points to it.
- Most other rums and English rums have some link to the coast, sea, navy, piracy etc etc. Not wanting to follow the crowd I thought, what is the opposite of this? Being Landlocked!
- The Distillery is just outside of Milton Keynes and about 20 minutes from the most geographically landlocked part of the UK.
- I am from Exeter in Devon. I grew up going to the beach several times a week and used to surf and swim in the ocean whenever I could. I met my now wife when she was at Exeter Uni and moved back to Berkhamsted with her not realising just how far from the coast it was. I am now landlocked and drying out.
So it’s a very personal brand to me you could say.”
There we go, a very detailed description on Landlocked rum and how it’s made. It’s interesting the fact that they use Demerara sugar alongside the molasses. This might raise a few eyebrows, but I don’t have much problem with it, although I do prefer the more “traditional” raw materials.
Landlocked White Rum is molasses and Demerara sugar based, pot still distilled and bottled at 42% ABV. No additives added.
On the nose it feels quite full bodied. Walnuts, biscuits, pale ale and toffee. Green olives, gherkins and a drop of liquorice. It has a sharp and sweet kind of smell. Corn flakes with milk, iron and white cardboard. Some vanilla and dill as well.
On the palate it becomes even more vegetal. Dill, anise, toffee and some candied strawberry. White pepper, green olives in brine and a touch of nutmeg. Once again, it seems to have a decent balance between the sharp notes and the (perceived) sweetness. Lime leaf, black pepper and dried herbs. The finish is short to medium with biscuits and vegetal flavours.
A very interesting unaged rum that lies more towards the sharp, funky flavours. I can see how having a little amount of the heads in the blend is affecting the profile, which I could only describe as a little bit off-vegetal – but it isn’t something I hate as I like odd notes as long as they’re somehow balanced. Definitely one to try, especially given that it is fairly local.
Landlocked White Rum can be ordered on their website for £32 and if you’re interested in getting one, or one of their any other expressions you can get 10% off by using the code RUMBAR10. This is valid for any first order on their site and I do get a little percentage as commission for each sale made – and no, my review isn’t affected by this.
Landlocked White Rum score:
Flavour/taste: 45/70
Value for money: 15/15
Transparency/purity: 15/15
Overall: 75/100
Cheers!