Launched in 1999 as Plantation Rum, the now-named Planteray is a rum brand founded by Alexandre Gabriel, the owner of Maison Ferrand and the man behind Pierre Ferrand Cognac house and Citadelle Gin.
The rebrand came in January 2024 after Maison Ferrand vowed to change the brand’s name in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd which sparked widespread conversations about systemic racism. The rum remains the same. The name Planteray is a portmanteau of Plant – referencing rum’s sugar cane origins – and Ray – referring to “the sun, being open to people, the heritage and savoir-faire of rum” – according to the brand.
Planetary owns the West Indies Rum Distillery (WIRD), founded in 1893 in Barbados, and also bottles rum from around the Caribbean and beyond. Each rum is made to reflect a different aspect of what makes rum unique, from the land to the climate, and the people who make them, but wherever they are from, all the Plantation rums go through a double-ageing. First in the hot and humid climate of the Caribbean and beyond, then in the cellars of Maison Ferrand in France for some cooler climate ageing, sometimes in Cognac casks. Planetary has sourced rum from over 20 distillers globally, including the Rum Co in Fiji and Saint Aubin in Mauritius, as well as producers in Paraguay and Peru.
As well as being a distiller and entrepreneur, Gabriel is also a keen historian of drinks, delving into the archives and sniffing out old recipes and techniques which he then recreates in modern form. At the brand’s seafront distillery, he found a room full of archives depicting very old records and blueprints. These unique documents, as well as the knowledge of distillery workers with decades of experience, inform the rum creation. The distillery team even refurbished one of the oldest rum stills in the world, the Rockley, representing over 3,000 hours of work alone. Planetary also redeveloped its yeast nursery, revived traditional rum production techniques such as seawater fermentation, and restored an old cooperage station – bringing the craft back to Barbados.
Planteray’s flagship rums include the award‐winning Planteray 20th Anniversary XO rum as well as Plantation Stiggins’ Fancy Pineapple Rum, made in association with Dave Wondrich and inspired by Reverend Stiggins from Charles Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers.