WHEN Paul and Jacine Rutasikwa launched their Matugga rum brand at the London Rum Festival in 2015, they raised a few eyebrows.
At that time there were very few UK-produced rum brands and Matugga – named for a Ugandan town with close ties to Paul’s family – was something of a curiosity.
“There were a few heckles,” Jacine told SLTN last week during a trip to the company’s Livingston distillery.
“‘This can’t be any good, it’s not from Jamaica, it’s not from the tropics’.”
Then the hecklers tasted it. And suddenly they weren’t heckling anymore.
An export deal followed and, before long, the Rutasikwas were at a crossroads. Was it time for Paul, an engineer, and Jacine, who worked in marketing, to pursue their ‘side hustle’ full time?
A trip to Martinique, meeting and speaking to family distillers, sealed the deal.
“We decided that we were going to go all-in,” said Jacine.
At that time the couple were living in England and working with a contract distiller in Cambridgeshire to produce two rums: a golden rum and a masala chai-spiced rum.
But going full-time meant learning the intricacies of distillation and so the family relocated north of the border so that Paul could study distillation at Heriot Watt.
When he graduated, they bought their first stills and set up shop in Livingston – starting production there in 2018.
Having their own facility has allowed the couple free rein to experiment and expand their range.
In addition to the core Matugga range – the smoky golden rum and masala chai-spiced rum – Matugga recently released its first three-year-old aged rum, the limited edition Mavuno, which was awarded a Masters Medal from the Spirits Masters competition.
The company also produces a separate product range under the brand name Liv (short for Livingston), which includes a number of rum liqueurs as well as a navy strength white rum.
Rum, obviously, is ordinarily the product of much warmer climes and producing the spirit in Scotland’s famously unpredictable climate hasn’t been without his challenges.
“Molasses does not like cold weather,” explained Paul.
“So fermenting during the winter is a challenge. Which is why we’ve decided to get some new stainless steel tanks, which are temperature controlled, so we can maintain a constant temperature during the fermentation.
“What happens now is during the winter we get a dip in yield and the fermentations take a lot longer, which is troublesome.”
Matugga’s rums are matured in oak casks and here, at least, Scotland provides some advantages.
Paul explained that during the colder months the casks tend to lose less spirit to evaporation, with the warmer months providing quicker maturation for the company’s rums.
“There’s always challenges, but with enough research and practice I think we’ve cracked it,” said Paul.
And, of course, Scotland does have historic links to rum production, even if they are not links the country tends to shout about.
“It’s not your typical place for rum production, but Scotland has a deep rum production heritage, and not a lot of people know that,” said Jacine.
“The link to rum, sugar, age of empire, transatlantic slavery – Scotland was in the middle of all of that. And the legacy is there. You walk around the streets of Glasgow, Jamaica Street etc, all the sugar houses that were there.
“It’s something we as Scots distillers have been talking about. I think that’s really healthy. Having Jamaican heritage, my late step grandfather was a MacDonald. You know there is a very close link beween Scotland and Jamaica.
“For me, coming up to Scotland and discovering this whole history is fascinating.
“It’s about acknowledging that and also being forward-looking and knowing that we’re part of Scotland’s new wave of rum distilling.
“Being able to look at it holistically is very important.
“You can’t just trample on the past. You have to acknowledge it.”
Matugga promotes itself as the product of a ‘flavour triad’, drawing on the rum-making traditions of Jamaica, ingredients from Africa (where the sugarcane is sourced) and proud distilling history of Scotland.
Having steadily built the Matugga name, a successful crowdfunding campaign in 2022 has led to a brand new set of fermentation tanks and a shiny new still that will allow the business to increase its capacity from 5000 to 40,000 litres a year.
In addition to increasing volumes of Matugga’s own products, the new kit – due to come on stream this month – will also allow the business to contract-distil for other people, creating an additional income stream for Matugga as well as potentially increasing the number of Scottish and UK rum brands on the market.
“We’re being approached by a lot of gin producers who want to get into rum but don’t necessarily want the rum production on site,” said Jacine.
“Because it takes over. Molasses is a very sticky, messy business.”
“I envy the gin distillers,” added Paul. “You go in there and it’s pristine, clean everywhere, because they don’t deal with anything messy.”
And Jacine reckoned the next chapter of Matugga’s story is beginning at exactly the right time.
“We’re scaling up our production at a time when rum is really getting a lot of attention,” she said.
“The rum movement has been discussed since we got into the industry, but now the data is showing that sales are strong.”
Indeed, the Scottish rum landscape is a lot busier in 2023 than it was a few short years ago. Along with another early adopter – Dark Matter – Matugga has since been joined by names including Ninefold, Pixel Spirits and Old Mother Hunt, among others.
It’s still a comparatively small scene when compared to gin or whisky, however, and Jacine said the Scottish rum distillers have been keen to work together to raise the sector’s profile.
“So now we find ourselves part of this amazing Scottish rum distilling community,” she said.
“There’s not many of us dedicated rum distilleries up here but we work quite closely together. We’re all kind of in support of one another, because there’s no guidebook for what we’re doing. We’re writing the guidebook.”
One of the early collaborations was the launch of the Scottish Rum Festival in 2020.
Taking place digitally due to the pandemic, the first festival included around eight rum brands, with that number doubling in 2021.
This year the event will happen in-person for the first time, and is scheduled to take place in Edinburgh in early September.
It’s one of several steps Jacine and Paul have taken to promote Scottish rums to the wider populace, with other initiatives including a rum club which posts new and experimental samples to subscribers six times a year.
And as if all that wasn’t enough, the couple are also about to get into the sugarcane business themselves with the launch of their own plantation.
The initiative, located on a landholding owned by Paul’s family in Uganda, will ultimately allow Matugga to offer a ‘cane to cask’ product, with every step of the process controlled by the Scottish company.
“It’s something we’ve been planning for a while now, but the whole mission is ‘cane to cask’, so we know where the sugar has been grown and it’s a link back to our family,” explained Jacine.
“We’re starting a trial plantation where we can support sugarcane growers, because it’s a very tough livelihood.
“They can sometimes hardly make a living. But what we’re offering is value addition. So typically a sugarcane farmer will take their harvest to a sugarcane factory and they’re beholden to pricing – and that’s their one route to income.
“But what we’re offering is the chance to process their sugarcane into molasses, which creates a lot more value.”
The first crop will be planted shortly, with the company’s first homegrown molasses due in Scotland late next year.
In the meantime, the company will be working to build its presence in the Scottish on-trade (Matugga is stocked by wholesalers including Gordon & MacPhail, Dunns Food & Drink and Williamson).
And Jacine reckons there’s never been a better time for bars to embrace Scotland’s newest craft spirit.
“We’ve obviously got our rum heartland, but it’s great to be able to bring new drinkers to the category.
“We can bring whisky drinkers in through Matugga, who want a sipping experience. Have it on ice or a nice smoky rum Old Fashioned. And then through Liv we’re bringing in gin drinkers who might just be a little bit fatigued with gin and their palate just wants a different flavour sensation.
“There’s so much to discover. And these are all locally-sourced, locally-made, beautiful spirits.
“What’s not to love?”
