The Queen’s Share of Rum
There are far more women-owned rum brands than most people realise. Today, we share the full landscape of 40 female-owned brands and distilleries. Since publishing, the number is higher.
As a location-based rum platform, we have a clearer view of data than most. When we added a women-owned filter to our map, 40 brands lit up across the United States, the UK, Australia, Europe, the Caribbean, and beyond. This number reflects something long overlooked.
Women have been building serious rum operations on every continent, in remote distilleries, in city warehouses, in family estates that go back generations, and in brand-new ventures just launching.
The women in this list are founders, distillers, scientists, journalists-turned-producers, fifth-generation inheritors, and first-time entrepreneurs. Some are running the biggest rum operation in their country. Others are just getting started. All of them are doing the work.
We have profiled each one below, grouped by region. Every brand links through to its full profile on our map, where you can explore opening hours, tasting rooms, distillery tours, and more.
United States
The US accounts for 26 of the 40 brands on our map, spread across ten states. Oregon leads the West with three women-owned operations, followed by Florida with six.
Oregon
Oregon Spirit Distillers
Co-founded by Kathy Irwin in Bend in 2009, Oregon Spirit is one of the state’s largest craft producers. Kathy helped build it into a significant regional operation long before women in distilling became a talking point.
Vivacity Spirits
Caitlin Prueitt studied fermentation science at Oregon State before opening Vivacity in the Willamette Valley, making it one of Oregon’s first women-owned microdistilleries. She produces rum alongside gin, brandy and vodka from her family of spirits.
Founded by Anne Arasin, Stern Mama began its journey in 2019 from a volunteer experience at Agua Negra, a nanobrewery in Argentina. Motivated by her passion for distilled spirits, Anne pursued formal education in the craft beverage industry, eventually establishing Stern Mama after relocating to Oregon with her family in 2022. With the support of the local Willamette Valley Chapter of the Pink Boots Society and the connections made at Onward Eugene’s Female Founders Pitchfest, Anne has turned her dream into reality. Thanks to Pink Boots, Anne met Caitlin Prueitt, the owner of Vivacity Spirit, leading to a wonderful opportunity for women supporting women in the vibrant craft spirits community.
Trail Distilling
Sara Brennan founded Trail in Oregon City, the historic end of the Oregon Trail, and built it into a certified farm distillery. They produce a Jamaican-style unaged silver rum. Sara was named Best Woman Distiller at the International Women’s Wine and Spirits Competition, recognition that reflects the quality she has brought to this corner of the state.
Washington
Scratch Distillery
Kim Karrick co-founded Scratch in Edmonds, Washington in 2015 on one rule: make everything from scratch. Rum arrived in 2023, built from Panela sugarcane with no additives and no shortcuts.
California
Rum et al.
Dr. Robyn Smith is a chemical engineer and former Lost Spirits distiller who launched this Los Angeles microdistillery in 2024. She uses techniques like dunder to produce rums that are as precise as they are bold — science in a bottle.
Colorado
Montanya Distillers
Founded in Crested Butte in 2008 by Karen Hoskin, Montanya became the world’s first B-Corp certified rum distillery, producing at 9,000 feet on Louisiana sugarcane and Colorado snowmelt. In 2023, Hoskin passed the reins to two women who had spent over a decade making the rum: head distiller Megan Campbell and operations lead Renée Newton now own and run it.
Louisiana
Oxbow Rum Distillery
Olivia Stewart is fifth-generation on her family’s sugarcane estate in Pointe Coupée, where the land has been farmed since 1859. She stepped into the role of president during the pandemic and has since made Oxbow one of the most compelling names in American rum — distilling estate-grown cane juice and molasses into straight rum, bottled without additives, with ambitions to establish a GI for Louisiana cane juice rum.
Florida
Wicked Dolphin Distillery
JoAnn Elardo founded Wicked Dolphin in Cape Coral in 2012, making it the first legal distillery in Florida since Prohibition. A founding member of the Florida Distillers Guild, she helped push through legislation allowing craft distillers to sell on-premise — work that opened doors for every distillery that followed.
KAKI Rum
Caroline Prato Zenny grew up watching her father make Clairin in Léogâne, Haiti. She brought that four-generation family recipe to South Florida, named the brand after her own nickname, and became a licensed liquor wholesaler to get it onto shelves herself.
The Coconut Cartel
Danielle Zighelboim co-founded this brand with her brother in 2012, starting by sourcing coconuts from El Salvador before building it into a rum brand. The rum is made in Guatemala from local sugarcane, aged up to 12 years, and proofed down using fresh coconut water.
Severessence Distilling Co
Victoria Wagner is a chemical engineer and research scientist who founded Severessence in Tampa in 2022, applying the same precision to distilling that she brought to her lab career. Her Biki’s Rum line sits alongside an inventive range of gins, all made at Dark Door Spirits in Tampa.
Black Creek Distilleries
Suzette Fleming co-founded Black Creek in 2019, becoming the first legal distillery in Clay County, Florida. Their flagship white rum is made with Panela sugar, imported in 50-pound bags — a small detail that says a lot about how seriously they take the process.
Gamblers Bay Distillery
Kerri Paun co-founded Gamblers Bay in Tampa in 2019 alongside her husband Mark, a doctor who turned a 120-year-old Romanian family distilling tradition into a craft operation. Kerri runs the business day-to-day while Mark handles the still. Their Navy Strength Spiced Rum has taken Double Gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.
La Marielita Rum
Janet Díaz‑Bonilla is a Cuban-American entrepreneur who named her Miami-based brand after the Mariel boatlift. Inspired by her family’s journey from Cuba, she created the brand to help reshape the narrative around Marielitos, honouring their resilience and contributions.
North Carolina
Liberty & Plenty Distillery
Tina Williford left a career in wine to become the sole owner of Liberty & Plenty in Durham in 2020, bringing an MSc in Brewing and Distilling from Heriot-Watt University to the still. Her Cap & Cane range covers white and gold rum made with both molasses and cane juice.
Maryland
Lyon Rum / Windon Distilling
Jaime Windon co-founded Lyon in Saint Michaels in 2012, making it the first licensed distillery to distill spirits in Maryland since 1972. A former bartender and photojournalist, she went on to found the Maryland Distillers Guild, serve as its president for seven years, and help rewrite federal excise tax rules that hadn’t been touched since Prohibition. She eventually dropped whiskey entirely to focus on rum. Few people in American craft spirits have done more to reshape the industry from the inside.
New Jersey
Striped Lion Distilling
Erin Wright is a paediatrician by day and co-founder of Woodbury’s only rum distillery, which she opened with her husband Kevin in 2020 after years of rum-collecting trips and navigating New Jersey’s notoriously slow craft distilling regulations. The distillery is 100% Black-owned and majority women-owned, named after the big cats they bonded over on their first date.
Ohio
Esther Rum
Emunah Winer and Margaret Kerr-Jarrett launched Esther in Columbus, Ohio, in 2026, a premium Colombian rum produced at Picciotto Family Distillery in Cali, then blended and bottled in Ohio. The two co-founders are branding specialists who also built Casa Malka Tequila, and it shows: Esther arrives as a fully formed brand with a clear identity from day one. One to watch as it finds its feet in the market.
New York
Owney’s Rum
Bridget Firtle founded Owney’s in 2012 to bring rum distilling back to New York City, inspired by America’s colonial rum history. She has since reacquired the brand and is relaunching it in NYC in 2026.
HH Bespoke Spirits
Shay Wood co-founded Harlem Haberdashery Bespoke Spirits in Harlem, building a collection that sits alongside the neighbourhood’s iconic fashion brand. Their aged rum blend draws on 18th-century American rum traditions.
New Hampshire
New England Sweetwater Farm & Distillery
Sisters Alisa Lawrence and Nilaja Young took over this Winchester distillery in 2020 from their cousin, who had founded it in 2015 on recipes passed down from their grandfather’s era. The two Brooklyn-raised sisters left careers in medicine and music to move to rural New Hampshire and carry on the family legacy. It is one of the few Black women-owned distilleries in the United States. Their Kingfish Gold Rum is made in the tradition of Colonial American distillers.
United Kingdom
England
Diablesse Rum
Cleo Farman launched Diablesse in Manchester in 2019, drawing on Caribbean folklore, La Diablesse, a supernatural female figure, for both the name and the identity. The rum is blended with Demerara spirit from Guyana’s Diamond Distillery. Widely recognised as the first female-owned rum brand in the UK.
Two Lasses Spirits
Rebecca Allinson and Lindsey Harrison founded Two Lasses in Bingley, West Yorkshire, in 2021. Their Yorkshire Spiced takes its cue from Parkin, the region’s traditional gingerbread cake, and the whole range is produced without importing Caribbean liquid. The day-to-day business is now solely operated by Rebecca.
State of Rum
State of Rum is a women-owned independent bottler sourcing Caribbean rum. Founded and owned by Jaspreet Kaur Ward, she is recognised as the first British South Asian woman to independently own a UK-based rum brand. Still early days, but worth watching.
Burning Barn Rum
Katherine Jenner launched Burning Barn in Solihull in 2016 after a fire destroyed her father-in-law’s toffee apple business on the family farm. The blaze became the brand’s identity: smoked rum cold-aged with apple wood from the farm’s own orchard, spiced rum with hand-roasted whole spices.
Two Drifters Distillery
Gemma Wakeham co-founded Two Drifters near Exeter in 2018 with her husband, Russ, a PhD chemist. She is the commercial and marketing force behind the brand, while he runs the still. Together, they built the world’s first carbon-negative rum distillery, powered entirely by renewable energy and offsetting every gram of unavoidable emissions.
Scotland
Matugga Rum Distillers
Jacine Rutasikwa is the CEO and co-founder of Matugga, established in Livingston in 2018 alongside her husband and head distiller, Paul. Jacine is believed to be the UK’s first Black female distillery owner. The rums are made from scratch using African sugarcane molasses and distilled in copper pot stills, blending Paul’s Ugandan heritage with Jacine’s Jamaican roots.
Europe
Piekfeine Brände / Alma Norte
Birgitta Schulze van Loon founded Piekfeine Brände in Bremen, Germany, in 2011, creating what is recognised as the first Hanseatic rum. Her Alma Norte range, Blanco and Oro, draws on Bremen’s centuries-old trading history as a port city, bringing a distinctly northern European craft perspective to the category.
Kasama Rum
Alexandra Dorda-Marcu launched Kasama in 2021, drawing on her Filipino mother’s heritage and her Polish father’s distilling legacy — he co-founded both Belvedere and Chopin Vodka. The rum is distilled in the Philippines from locally grown sugarcane, aged seven years in ex-bourbon barrels, then bottled at the family distillery in Poland.
Australia
Hoochery Distillery
Kalyn Fletcher inherited the Hoochery from her father, who founded it in Kununurra in 1995, making it one of the oldest rum distilleries in Western Australia. She has modernised the operation while keeping the original recipe intact, and today runs it alongside head distiller Margaret Lyons, producing close to 200,000 litres of Ord River Rum annually. The team is predominantly women.
Soltera Rum / Cabarita Spirits
Keri Algar left journalism to become the sole founder and head distiller of Soltera, operating out of Cabarita Beach in New South Wales since 2019. She distils during the July to November sugarcane season and ages the rum across multiple cask types, with the Oro expression at the core of the range.
Birds of Isle
Chanel Melani and Sally Carter launched Birds of Isle in December 2023 from Pottsville, New South Wales, in the heart of Australia’s sugarcane belt. Their debut release blends five Venezuelan rums aged two to eight years, finished in Barossa Valley fortified wine barrels and infused with locally harvested bunya nuts — a distinctly Australian take on a Spanish-style base.
New Zealand
LWF Distilling
Janet Charteris founded LWF Distilling on her family farm in Taranaki in 2019, halfway between Auckland and Wellington on the west coast. She uses Australian molasses, European yeast and five-times filtered New Zealand rainwater, distilled through pot and column stills into a white rum built for funk. With a background in marketing, Charteris also designed the bottles to fit comfortably in women’s hands, a detail that came directly from female bartenders, and one that says a lot about who she is making rum for.
The Caribbean
Rhum Barbancourt
Founded in 1862, Barbancourt is Haiti’s most celebrated rum — made from fresh sugarcane juice rather than molasses, double-distilled in the French tradition, and aged in Limousin oak barrels. Delphine Gardère became the fifth generation of her family to lead the company in 2017, taking over as CEO after her father’s passing. She now stewards one of the oldest and most respected rum operations in the Caribbean.
Find Women-Owned Rum on Our Map
This list will grow. Our map is live and constantly updated, and as new women-owned brands are verified and added, they will appear here too.
To explore women-owned rum brands on our map yourself, simply visit our rum brands map, open the filters and tick the box marked Women-owned. The map will instantly show profiles. Select a country to narrow your search or scroll the feed below the map to browse the full list.
This is our most extensive list to date. But our data updates almost daily.
These are hard-working people building real businesses in a category that has not always made space for them, and they deserve to be found.
If you own or know of a women-owned rum brand not yet on our map, get in touch. We want to know about it. We define women-owned as majority female ownership of 51% or more.
Image credits to the brands, and thanks for their contributions.
