Tasting Notes: Barti Spiced
Barti Spiced. Spiced spirit drink with Caribbean rum, infused with Pembrokeshire seaweed.
A lot of people like to drink Barti on its own. But if you’re looking for a mixer, cloudy apple juice is fantastic, mix it in equal parts with lots of ice. Alternatively you can’t go wrong with ginger beer or cola.
Producer/Region:
Barti Rum launched quietly in the summer of 2017. An idea captured by Jonathan Williams, seaweed fanatic, founder of The Pembrokeshire Beach Food Company and self confessed dreamer.
After a series of late nights at the time of his second daughter being born. Jonathan found himself captivated by a story he’d newly discovered, one of adventure, Pembrokeshire, passion and the deep blue sea.
With the flavours in mind and a thirst for good drinks with good friends, Barti Ddu Spiced Rum was quickly born and so this new story begins. Barti is made up of expertly made Caribbean rum. Seasoned with not only the most vibrant notes of vanilla, clove and subtle orange. But with hand picked laver seaweed from right here on the beautiful Pembrokeshire coast where our Welsh rum company was founded.
The company is now run by a tiny team in Pembrokeshire which includes Fran, Amy and Jonathan.
Why Seaweed:
Laver carries a beautifully delicate, savoury flavour profile which complements the other notes and lifts them superbly.
Often overlooked and misrepresented as being salty, they believed laver seaweed carries a understated, savoury flavour profile. Which much to their delight, does magical things to the spices and the rum itself when infused. You have to try it – it is undeniably smooth.
Laver seaweed was once one of the most popular food items in South Wales. In Pembrokeshire there used to be a thriving cottage industry founded around picking laver from the beaches and sending it on to Swansea to be made into laverbread.
It was this which inspired Jonathan Williams to use laver in the first instance, in his street food cooking. The Pembrokeshire Beach Food Company (also known locally as Cafe Mor) was launched by Jonathan in 2012 and has won numerous awards. You can now find Jonathan and his seaweed filled delicacies at The Old Point House pub in Angle, Pembrokeshire.
Barti Ddu:
Barti Ddu is pronounced Barti Thee or in English Black Bart, wasn’t just any pirate. He left Pembrokeshire to work in the navy and nearing the end of his long and lowly career, the ship he worked on was defeated by pirates. Reluctantly, and for lack of any other option, Bartholomew Roberts joined his attackers.
Way back in the beginning their bottles said “Barti Ddu Rum” on them. It was brought to their attention by Trading Standards that under EU rules, they could not call the spirit a rum unless it was over 37.5% ABV (Barti is 35%). They experimented with changing the ABV but we it wasn’t the same and they didn’t want to mess about with their winning recipe. So they had to drop the word rum and replace it with a word which would still imply rum, which is how they came to start using “Barti Spiced” (Barti Ddu Spiced was too many letters and appeared very small on the label). In 2023 another label change is coming.
The recipe has always been the same, it has always been a spiced rum!
