Pryce Greenow said he has an easy job: Convince people across America to drink Cruzan Rum.
“How can you not like rum?” he asked Thursday at the groundbreaking ceremony for Cruzan Rum’s new wastewater treatment plant, a project that will allow the St. Croix distillery to almost double production, from 10 million proof gallons to 18 million.
As general manager of “mixables” for Beam Global Spirits & Wine, the corporate parent of Cruzan, it’s Greenow’s job to find a market for that rum. Thursday he didn’t sound overly concerned about the task.
“It’s as simple as sampling,” he said. “If people try Cruzan Rum, they’ll buy Cruzan Rum.”
Beam Global has big plans for positioning Cruzan as a premium rum. Several speakers at Thursday’s ceremony repeated the new slogan for Cruzan: “The legendary rum of the Virgin Islands.”
Gary Nelthropp, Cruzan’s president and CEO, said he appreciates having Beam and its parent company, Fortune Brands, behind the St. Croix distillery. Cruzan has undergone a series of corporate owners – five in the last 10 years and two in 2008 alone. But Fortune Brands has been willing to invest in the distillery to build the brand.
“They’re putting money behind the brand,” he said.
That’s not surprising; that’s Beam’s business model. It says so right on the business card Greenow handed out – “Building Brands People Want to Talk About.”
Anyone who has watched the bourbon market the last five or six years knows it. Bourbon drinkers tended to be a very traditional lot. Most would drink the same brand for most of their adult life, not dreaming of changing. But Jim Beam began releasing small batch and single barrel brands — Bookers, Basil Hayden, Bakers and Knob Creek — premium products that discerning bourbon drinkers were willing to pay a little more for because of the higher quality.
“Rum is starting to develop in the same way,” Greenow said, and Cruzan doesn’t need to come up with a new premium product. It already has one, Cruzan Single Barrel.
“Cruzan is a premium brand,” he said. “That’s not marketing-speak. If we can get it into a person’s hands, they’ll like it and they’ll want to buy it.”
It’s a concept he called “portable luxury.” People who earlier might have balked at paying a higher price have become educated or sophisticated enough now that they’re willing to pay more for a top-shelf product.
Rum is the second biggest category in the U.S. spirits market, and Cruzan’s expansion is coming at the perfect time, he said.
“We have big growth expectations,” Greenow said.
Cruzan Single Barrel last year scored a 96 out a possible 100 in taste tests conducted by the Beverage Testing Institute, which called it “an amazingly smooth and refined aged rum.”
Besides Beam and Cruzan, Beal Global owns Laphroaig scotch, Canadian Club whisky, Maker’s Mark bourbon, Sauza tequila, Vox vodka and DeKuyper, which includes gin and liqueurs.
Greenow also suggested that Nelthropp will play a prominent role in building the brand. Besides being the scion of a family with deep roots in the rum industry, he is a personable and articulate spokesman for Cruzan Rum. Using him more as the public face of Cruzan to the world will be part of the strategy.
Then it’s just a matter of getting people to try Cruzan, according to Greenow, and with the increased production that shouldn’t be too hard.
Like he said: Who doesn’t like rum?
