Husk Rum, from farm to bottle

1 July 2025 | Interviews & Meetings
Husk Rum, from farm to bottle

Interview with Paul Messenger, Founder and CEO of Husk Rum

Hello, thank you for this interview. You are the founder of Husk Distillery and Husk Rum. Before we dive into that, could you tell us how you first discovered rum?

I grew up near the ocean in southeast Queensland, where sugarcane has been cultivated since the mid-19th century, and where the rum brands Bundaberg and Beenleigh were an integral part of everyday life. Although I didn’t drink it as a child, those brands were everywhere and truly part of the culture. As a young geologist, I worked in many remote regions of Australia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific, where rum was readily available. However, when I drank spirits, it was usually malt whisky. Then, in 2009, while on a cruise in the Caribbean, I discovered the rums of Martinique, and I fell in love with them. Before that trip, I had never sipped rum neat and didn’t know that a fine rum could be enjoyed that way.

Quentin, Master Distiller at Husk
Quentin, Master Distiller at Husk

The Australian rum market remains relatively unknown to Europeans. Could you share a few figures to help illustrate this market?

The Australian spirits market, at around 10 million 9-liter cases per year, is small compared to beer, wine, and ready-to-drink (RTD) beverages. Rum accounts for about 10% of spirits consumed by Australians each year. Traditionally, the rum market was dominated by Bundaberg, which still makes up around 50% of all rum sales, although twenty years ago, that figure was closer to 80%.

Dark rum (including spiced) makes up more than 80% of the market, with spiced rum accounting for about 30%, most of which is imported. Premium price segments represent about 12% of the market—a figure that has increased significantly over the past decade, reflecting a trend toward premiumization.

Of course, the rum market in Australia remains almost entirely dominated by molasses-based rums, with agricole or cane juice rums representing less than 1% of total rum sales. Husk leads the cane juice rum subcategory with 3,000 9-liter cases sold in 2023, followed by Negrita with 1,700 cases.

In recent years, we’ve seen growing interest in French rums, with brands like St James, HSE, Clément, Rhum JM, as well as Père Labat and Chalong Bay, all available through Australia’s largest spirits retailer, Dan Murphy’s.

How did the story of Husk Rum begin? And why did you choose to produce pure cane juice rum in a country where it isn’t a tradition?

With a PhD in Earth Sciences and over 20 years of experience in mineral exploration and mining, a long-held dream of owning a farm near the ocean resurfaced, and I began thinking about settling down. I was inspired by Tasmania’s emerging whisky industry and considered building a whisky distillery. But everything changed on the rugged northern coast of Martinique in the summer of 2009.

With so much sugarcane at home, I wondered why no one had ever made this type of rum, and the idea of returning to the cane fields and surf beaches of my childhood took hold. I felt a sense of calling: to create a new style of Australian rum, a spirit that would capture the provenance and the essence of the place where I grew up—the Caldera Coast, located on the border between Queensland and New South Wales.

You describe your rum as “farm to bottle.” What values guide your production and your approach to the market?

First and foremost, I’d say we are guided by the principles of provenance, which for us mean "place" and "people." This involves geography, landscape, climate, history, agriculture, industry, trade, policy (including taxation), and the cultural fabric of a region.

In the context of distilled spirits, it’s about identifying which locally grown products can be distilled, and how, to produce a spirit that resonates with the market. We live in a coastal volcanic caldera where sugar production has been a major commercial industry for over 160 years. Labor costs in Australia have always been high, which led to the mechanization of the sugarcane industry in the 1960s and 70s. Today, that translates into access to affordable second-hand machinery and a skilled workforce. Rum played a major role in Australia’s economy and society in the 18th and early 19th centuries, and it remains the only spirits category still dominated by locally produced brands.

So, according to the principles of provenance, everything was already in place to create a new style of Australian rum on our 60-hectare farm in the Tweed Valley.

This farm includes 12 hectares of untouched Gondwana rainforest, 8 hectares of sugarcane, 5 hectares of buildings and grounds, and 35 hectares of pasture for livestock. The farm supports our business and everything we do, so maintaining and managing it is essential to our operations and long-term viability.

Our sustainable approach means we do not burn our sugarcane. We harvest it green, leaving a thick layer of leaves and green tops on the fields to suppress weeds. Vinasse is irrigated onto the fields or fed to our cattle, the bagasse from the mill is sold to a company that processes it into dietary fiber. We harvest all our water from the roofs of our buildings and store 400,000 liters in our tanks. A 55 kW rooftop solar system supplies 30% of our energy needs.

Sugarcane from the Husk distillery
Sugarcane from the Husk distillery
Ancient Tweed Valley, with Wollumbin Mount Warning in the background
Ancient Tweed Valley, with Wollumbin Mount Warning in the background
Sugarcane fields at Husk Farm Distillery
Sugarcane fields at Husk Farm Distillery

On average, our sugarcane crop sequesters 480 tonnes of CO₂ per year, and our protected rainforest captures an additional 180 tonnes. On the other hand, the fuel used for our farm machinery and boiler emits 117 tonnes of CO₂ annually, our fermentation process contributes between 30 and 50 tonnes depending on the season, and our cattle herd produces around 2 tonnes of methane per year. So, excluding externalities, our on-farm activities contribute to a net reduction of approximately 500 tonnes of CO₂ per year.

At Husk, “farm to bottle” means capturing the essence of the Caldera Coast in a bottle, in a way that is sustainable for the long term. We grow and harvest our cane from locally selected varieties, our mill and distillery transform the fresh juice into rum, we age our rum in barrels sourced from the Australian wine industry, and it matures under ambient conditions in our subtropical climate before being bottled in our state-of-the-art bottling hall. Our cellar door is the main point of contact with the public—a testing ground for new product development. All of this happens on our small farm, and we plan for this operation to continue for many decades, even centuries, into the future.

How much rum is produced at your distillery? How many barrels does the distillery hold?

We produce cane juice rum during the harvest season, from August to November, and syrup-based rum between January and March. Historically, we’ve crushed between 250 and 450 tonnes of cane per season to produce up to 25,000 liters of pure alcohol (LPA) of cane juice rum, and another 25,000 liters of pure alcohol from syrup-based rum annually. We recently expanded our cultivated land to 8 hectares, giving us a crushing capacity of 1,000 tonnes per year.

We fill Australian wine barrels, mainly from Penfolds in South Australia. These barrels are scraped and re-charred before being filled with rum at 65% ABV. We currently have 1,200 barrels in our aging warehouse and experience an average evaporation loss of 4.5% per year.

What equipment do you use to produce your rums?

We use a custom-built sugar mill with a rated capacity of 10 tonnes per hour. The juice is pumped into four vertical fermenters, each holding 12,000 liters. We apply a two-step double distillation process using a 6,000-liter copper pot still to produce the majority of our rums. Additionally, we use a single-step process with a 7.5-meter-high rectification column, 500 mm in diameter, for certain expressions.

Could you introduce us to Husk Pure Cane and Husk Rare Blend?

Pure Cane is the heart of all our rums. I like to think of it as the raw spirit of the Caldera Coast.

It has a crystal-clear appearance and a delightfully floral nose, with vibrant notes of fresh sugarcane, hints of brown sugar, sweet and tangy tropical fruits, citrus, and licorice. On the palate, Pure Cane is surprisingly smooth, crisp, gently effervescent with sweet fruit, followed by a touch of creaminess, licorice, and grassy sugarcane notes. The finish is clean and dry, medium in length, with lingering zesty highlights.

Rare Blend is perhaps our most approachable rum. Originally designed as a bridge between molasses-based rums and cane juice rums—targeting an Australian market unfamiliar with agricole styles—it is a blend of 20% cane juice rums and 80% syrup-based rums, or “cane honey.”

Smoother than our 100% cane juice rums, Rare Blend displays a beautiful golden hue and a nose filled with honeysuckle, vanilla, hints of tobacco, and raisin. On the palate, it is full-bodied and well-balanced, with a touch of complexity. The dominant character of the cane syrup rum brings notes of toasted oak and cooked fruits, which open into a subtle, underlying layer of herbal and floral sugarcane notes from the cane juice portion of the blend. The finish is smooth and medium-bodied, with lingering notes of vanilla, caramel, and a hint of spice.

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Written by

Matthieu Lange
Spirits Advisor