155: The Search for the Best American Rums with Mainland Rum's Seth Benhaim

Note: As a reminder, Rumcast Reserve bottles are officially available in stores and shipping from our online retailer! You can grab your bottles here: https://www.rumcast.com/reserve

You can watch the video version of this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/zIAF12lf1hg

In this episode, we sat down with the founder of the only independent rum bottler exclusively focused on sourcing rums from the United States, Seth Benhaim of Mainland Rum.

Since launching a little over a year ago, Mainland Rum has released some of the longest aged American rums to hit the market in recent years, including a 10-year-old Louisiana and a 9-year-old California to go along with releases sourced from Georgia and Florida.

With their first unaged release from a Minnesota distillery set to hit the market soon, we figured it was a good time to catch up and learn more about Mainland's vision. We discussed:

Arriving at the idea to focus solely on American rum

The challenge of sourcing longer aged rums from craft distilleries

Negative perceptions associated with the category

The double-edged sword of releasing rums from closed distilleries

First impressions of Mainland's unaged "S. Pombe" release sourced from Black Frost Distilling

The future of the American rum category

And more