Plantation Pineapple Stiggins’ Fancy Rum Wins Big

Plantation Pineapple Stiggins’ Fancy Rum was just named “Best New Product” at the 2016 Spirited Awards on Sat, July 23 at Tales of the Cocktail, a spirits and cocktail festival which this year was attended by more than 20,000 industry professionals and spirits enthusiasts. Maison Ferrand, the house that produces Plantation Rum, is the only company to receive this prestigious honor two times at Tales of the Cocktail. In 2012, Maison Ferrand won Best New Product for Pierre Ferrand 1840 Original Formula Cognac and in 2013, Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao was a finalist for the same award.
 
Alexandre Gabriel, owner and cellar master of Maison Ferrand, is driven by a quest for excellence. The award honors the result of years of hard work. “These spirits are my life,” he says. “The fruit of a passion shared by a team that is on a mission. Our intense focus is perhaps what sets Pierre Ferrand, Plantation and Citadelle Gin apart from other spirits. I am grateful from the bottom of my heart to my entire team, as well as to the jury of Tales of the Cocktail for this wonderful distinction. Our mission is to amaze and bring pleasure through spirits of excellence and taste.  We are a small but passionate team and the only company to receive top prize twice in the history of Tales of the Cocktail. Considering the level of competition this year, we receive this honor with great humility and are encouraged to continue the hard work. Indeed, we are currently working on new products that will surprise you all!”
 
The story of Plantation Pineapple Stiggins’ Fancy never included plans to market it. Indeed, it was a rum resulting from research that Alexandre Gabriel and his small team undertook along with his friend and oft-collaborator, David Wondrich. The two friends wished to create a pineapple rum, one similar to the favorite drink of Reverend Stiggins which is a character in Charles Dickens’ Pickwick Papers. Pineapple rum unfortunately disappeared in the late 19th century but by digging through old recipes and reinterpreting ingredients, Gabriel, Wondrich and the team ended up producing a special rum, named in honor of Reverend Stiggins, that they then shared with their friends at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans in 2014.
 
Gabriel explains how Stiggins’ Fancy came to be: “The pineapple rum experiment turned out delicious and we thought we would enjoy it, share it with our friends at Tales of the Cocktail and in New Orleans and then we would move on to other exciting experiments. We didn’t expect the overwhelming amount of praise from bartenders and aficionados who began to harass us to produce more. So we decided to make another batch and share it with even more friends and the rest is history.”