National Rum Day falls on Sunday 16 August, and it arrives in a year when Britain has quietly become a serious rum producer in its own right. There are now more than 60 rum distilleries operating in the UK, a similar number to the whole of the Caribbean, according to David Howarth, founder of Manchester's House of Rum, speaking to The Spirits Business in July 2026.
The category's resilience shows up in the retail data too. NIQ figures published in the same report show super-premium rum was the only rum segment in growth in the UK off-trade over the past year, with value sales rising from £29 million to £30.8 million. Analysis from the IWSR found that every spirits category in the UK except agave declined in 2025, with rum holding up better than whisky, vodka and gin, according to Humphrey Serjeantson, the firm's research director for Western Europe. The IWSR expects premium and above rums to keep growing over the next decade while standard and value bottlings fall away.
"Rum was tipped as the next gin for the best part of a decade and it never quite happened on schedule, then it went and built sixty distilleries while nobody was looking," said David Baddeley, founder of Boozy, the ready to drink cocktail maker based in Greater Manchester. "What we see at our end backs it up. Our two rum serves are the ones customers reorder most through summer, and daiquiri and mojito questions outnumber everything else at the events we do around Manchester."
For anyone marking the day at home, Boozy's rum cocktails are the Blue Daiquiri and the Dragonfruit Mojito, both mixed and canned in 200ml single serve portions, a format designed to make it easy to keep track of exactly what you are drinking. Step by step versions of both drinks are on the Boozy recipe blog, with the Blue Daiquiri recipe here and the Dragonfruit Mojito recipe here. Anyone mixing their own from scratch can check the strength of a homemade daiquiri or mojito with the free Cocktail ABV Calculator, which covers more than 100 recipes.
However you choose to mark National Rum Day, please drink responsibly. For advice and information visit drinkaware.co.uk.
