Behind the Brand

Kiran Akal, Founder and CEO of Akal Chai Rum

Lee Diaz, ReserveBar Staff Writer

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There is a certain delight in creation. That act of taking what has been learned over generations and gaining inspiration from the world and from history, to develop something new and truly unique. That is what Kiran Shiva Akal is doing as the Founder and CEO of Akal Chai Rum along with his partner John Fleming. Leveraging the experience of his family in the art of tea and blending it into the traditions of rum, he is working to create a new direction that looks to transform an industry. We sat down with Kiran to discuss this work.

WHAT WAS THE INITIAL INSPIRATION FOR CREATING AKAL?

It was really an accidental happening. My family had been involved in tea, spices and perfumes for five generations by way of our Indian origins and my maternal grandfather’s business. We were part of the Indian diaspora into the West Indies that took place during the British Raj. Five generations later, I was helping my mother rebrand the family tea company, which she oversaw. In rebranding it, I thought I really should drill down deeply into the history of tea.

I came across a mention in a book, that during the time of trade between Europe and India, and between the West Indies and Europe, a Dutch Admiral had put tea and rum together and said that it was “delightful.” That was a eureka moment. I immediately saw that there was a wonderful opportunity to do something completely new with rum. Something that came from deep within my family’s historical experience.

I didn't just think about Akal Chai Rum as a tea-rum. I thought about it in terms of the perfumes, and the botanicals; the earthiness of tea, the language of flowers and the sunlight and warmth which I knew very well.

How could I capture that in a bottle? I've been drinking tea since I was a child. I realized that if this new process was done with a very sophisticated approach, there was potential to create a new category of rum. One that embodied a new language of botanical ingredients starting with Indian teas and flower petals; an innovative approach to processing and finishing of rums as well as a broad vision of taste notes. These would transcend a single territory.

In short, these rums would embody a seamless integration of the East and the West Indies with the smells, tastes and flavours brought to the world from these regions.

HOW DID YOU START WORKING TOWARD DEVELOPING AKAL?

I was very fortunate. Everybody has a little sprinkling of luck, as they say. I happened to know the then deputy CEO and Master Blender of Angostura, one of the largest rum companies in the Caribbean; I grew up a few houses away from her. She is one of only two women in the Rum Hall Of Fame in the West Indies. I went to her when Akal Chai Rum was just an idea. The research and development process also took me to the Caribbean Industrial Research Institute (CARIRI).

I had said to everyone at the time that the components are especially important. We needed to take a “wild” approach. And be sure not to use artificial essences or synthetic flavourings. The provenance of our ingredients would guide the results.

We were not just making the rum; we were looking at how we could write the next chapter in the rum story. We would know it is right when we had captured the “gift of sunlight in the bottle.” Our goal was to create the most poetic and beautiful rums in the world, and we are now doing that. It’s a new language for rum.

Warmth, floral and fruit fragrances, as well as earthy malt evolved as we worked. We were looking for a rum spirit that would take us into a different arena; into the worlds of cognacs, digestifs, and fine whiskies. An exceptional rum that would have a place in the most sophisticated bars and restaurants in the world.

From the outset, we have said that the tea, the flowers and the rum have equal play.

Tea is regarded in certain societies such as India and Japan, with the reverence and collectability that people would bestow on a good cognac or a good whiskey in the West. Tea prices can range into the thousands for a kilo due to its rarity, terroir and cultivation methods. We use very, very fine teas in the creation of our products that are responsibly and sustainably sourced.

WHERE DID THE INSPIRATION FOR AKAL'S NAME AND BRAND COME FROM?

That was easy. My mother's company was called SMAKS, and that was an anagram for all of the names of the family Savi, Melvin, Ashvin, Kiran and Siri. That evolved into our parent Company - The SMAKS Luxury Group.

My last name is Akal. When you believe in something strongly enough, you bet your name on it.

We created a House - “The House Of Akal” and created a Luxury Group, owned and creatively led by a West Indian Family. After all, “The Luxurious West Indies” has been the source of cocoa and chocolate and spices and sugar and rum and cotton since the 15 Century. Queen Victoria would only wear her giant knickers made of West Indian Sea Island Cotton!

In thinking about a “House” another aspect was the crest design we use above the name Akal. In Indian families, heredity is matriarchal; it passes down through the mother. My mother's family came from a home in Trinidad that is the only example of its kind of Indian architecture in the western hemisphere. The house is called the House of Lions; or the Lion House. I was able to use my matrilineal heritage to celebrate our family crest.

It’s a wonderful symbol of two lions, one surmounted by a warrior with a bow and arrow. Seated between the Lions is Hanuman, the Indian deity with the head of a monkey and the body of a man. My impaled design now includes three mountains under the lion on the left representing Trinidad & Tobago and a scepter at the foot of the Lion on the right representing India. The two are united by rolling waves representing our journey.

HOW DID YOU BECOME BUSINESS PARTNERS WITH JOHN FLEMING?

John and I both came from a background in the Health Sciences. I got out a lot earlier; I did my degree, and I qualified as a doctor in Ireland. In a twist of fate, I landed up in Creative Direction. I was, I think, the youngest Commissioner General in history at the Seville World's Fair. I came to the United States at the invitation of the Walt Disney Company. I was also signed at the time to Warner Music. Through Warner Brothers and Disney, I ended up getting involved in my own creative projects here, and six weeks turned into sixteen years.

John is from Boston, born to a mother from Galway, Ireland. She came to the United States during the nursing shortage in the ’60s. It was supposed to be for a year or two but she met John’s father, the love of her life in Boston and stayed.

John qualified as a Physicians’ Assistant and worked in spinal surgery. He made a bold move and relocated to Florida. It was a combination of a great career opportunity and a love of adventure. Before the move, John had some ten years or so working behind the bars of his family’s establishments in Boston and Cape Cod. I met John through a social event in Florida; a wine tasting event. We were talking about Ireland and medicine and then eventually we got into my rum. The association, like most good things, was instant but casual.

As time went on, I realized he was really passionate about the project. He came up with the “smoking kit” concept. He also helped me get a distributor in MA. Eventually, we just started working together. It's been a very good working relationship because we have two different types of creativity. John is very good on the idea of presentational aspects. He was also responsible for bringing in our master mixologist and brand curator.

I have been very much focused on the branding and with the production process. I'm responsible for the development of collaborations; like our collaboration with a Japanese pottery dynasty that was featured in FOUR Magazine. Now we're both full-time in this company. We believe in it because we have both always shared the idea that being a “maker’ is an unparalleled life experience.

ARE YOU ABLE TO SHARE HOW YOU BLEND TEA AND RUM?

What I can tell you is that good tea is a very sensitive thing.

If you’re used to tea in the sense of a tea bag or something that you get in the airport, that's a far cry from what good tea really is. Tea reacts very differently to water temperature, pH, etc. We couldn't just boil a cup of tea and pour it into the barrel. That’s called a Toddy! In fact, the result would have been quite trite.

What we realized very early on is that we would have to combine two distilling processes to make this work. On the one side, there is the art of the perfumer. On the other side, the art of the spirits distiller.

The real secret came in how we married these two together. The unification of the elements involves time and a lot of care. We had good advice. After a long discussion, it was decided to keep this process and recipe a family trade secret.

Akal Chai Rum is officially recognized by the Government Of Trinidad and Tobago as a Trade Secret, only the second such Trade Secret on the island since the famed bitters.

HOW DID THE SMOKING KIT BECOME A CORE OFFERING WITH THE CHAI RUM?

John really led this initiative. When you look at wine, you open the bottle, you decant it, you smell it. Then you look at something like absinthe. The sugar cube that you put on the strainer, you set the sugar cube on fire. It comes together as a piece of theater and you enjoy it. So John and I began wondering what are some of the things we could do to create the ultimate Chai Rum drink experience?

In temples in India and in Buddhist temples in Bhutan, they use beautiful woods to scent all of the temples and they are gorgeous. Centered on these notions, we came to the question, why don’t we just mix rum with scented air? We played around with 15 to 20 different types of wood and found the types that most complimented the rum.

In the smoking kit, we have cedar, maple, and cherry. They vary from very sweet maple to slightly fruity cherry, and then woody cedar. When you drink the rum through the smoke, we found it modulates the taste beautifully.

Each scent has a meaning too. Eternity; love; balance.

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF EXPERIMENTATION AS A PART OF YOUR GROWTH?

Our work has opened up the most beautiful world to us. I'm elated with the opportunities that we have now with these rums.

There's now a new phase in our experimentation. We have set up an aging facility in the Republic of Ireland. The reason we did this was to explore the climate effect; it's cooler and wetter. When you take the rum, the Chai Rum, out of American oak, which it is aged in and put that into European oaks in a different climate, things happen.

We were stunned by how it tempered the rum. If we are not experimenting and discovering, moving and creating, then we do not have a creative house; we would have a factory or a blending facility.

I think a hallmark of our company is originality. From the beginning, the idea has been to look forward. We can't be simply barreling and batching more rum and spinning a story. We can't simply be just doing a spiced or flavored rum. My question to all who work with us technically is this: “how can we significantly contribute to the conversation about rum and take it somewhere else.” Our collaborations now are going deeper and deeper into these questions and we are delving into other creative arenas.

Creativity, experimentation and quality are what we are about.

HOW HAS DEVELOPING THIS RUM LED TO NEW EXPERIENCES OR CONCEPTS?

One of the things that Chai Rum brought to our lives was the traveling. We have been a global strategic partner of Northrop and Johnson Yachts, and we poured in Monaco at the Yacht Show. While traveling, we began to come across other spirits producers from Europe. They inspired us.

We set off on a journey to start to understand a little bit more about these other types of spirits. The first three that we looked at were whisky, sherry and cognac.

In experimenting with these new concepts, we came across a gentleman in Ireland. He had started a cooperage with the last Master Cooper left in Ireland; the master cooper was training apprentices. We began a deep dive into European oak, and it was revelatory. We developed a new aging process there; a second Trade Secret. We called it the “Methode Sillage”. As you may know, the sillage of a perfume is the lingering scent.

The result is three expressions- AKAL Chai Rum, FIA RUA - an Irish triple distilled Whiskey Cuvee; AKAL Chai Rum, LE SANGLIER - a Limousin Oak / XO Cognac Cuvee and AKAL Chai Rum, El Toro - an Amontillado del Puerto Cuvee. These rum expressions have been granted a classification as ‘exceptionally rare.’ Every year will be unique; affected by the botanical harvest and the weather.

HOW DO YOU CONTINUE TO EXPOSE YOURSELF TO NEW POSSIBILITIES FOR AKAL?

I am passionate about culinary experiences.

When you look at people like Jordan Bailey at AIMSIR in Ireland, he walked the length and breadth of Ireland to find what was natural to that landscape. Or similarly, Virgilio Martínez from Central in Peru. These chefs are getting a deep sense of everything around them, the country, the land, the air, the people, the architecture in order to create a meal.

We believe in attention to detail.

In this time of fast fashion, fast food and fast creativity, there is a dumbing down of what we are served up. We represent the antithesis of this type of thinking. Detail requires effort and effort unveils new possibilities. I owe this attitude to my mother in particular, who I came to realize did everything at an exceptional level and showed me the beauty in the art of it all.

We focus on our passion.

We look less at what others are doing in the space and look more towards open inspiration from our perspective. This is very much our modus operandi.

HOW IMPORTANT IS SUSTAINABILITY WITHIN YOUR PRODUCT MIX?

I think that sustainability is not a choice; it's an absolute necessity. We are going to get very creative about this in every aspect of our business. It will not be business as usual. We all have to step back and do it better.

As we lose species in nature and bees are threatened, we have come to understand that wild nature is a luxury. Perhaps the World’s most precious luxury. This is the luxury we are purveyors of and we need to protect it.

IF SOMEONE IS NEW TO AKAL, HOW DO YOU WANT THEM TO ENJOY IT?

My first thing to tell anybody, especially if you do not like rum is “might I suggest that you sip Akal Chai Rum neat”. Warm it up very slightly; take the brandy snifter, put some hot water in it and pour it out. Then pour the rum into the warm glass. Or, have it cool, try it with a very large ice cube in it or with a couple of drops of ice-cold water.

DO YOU HAVE ANY FINAL THOUGHTS AS WE CLOSE?

I would like to say one last thing. In a world where we are living with constant pressure of year-on-year growth and market share, I think that it's becoming increasingly important that things are really crafted.

People are using the word “craft” loosely; there is not a lot of genuine craft in the Spirits world. Originality is in short supply.

As someone from the West Indies, I think it is important to play a part in carrying the rum conversation forward. We are seeing the rum industry being sold off to the highest bidder. From the Bahamas to Trinidad.

So, I have a personal investment in this from this point of view. Just as some nations feel about the narrative around wine and some may feel about gin, we as West Indians, have some responsibility to be at the leading edge of the rum narrative.

This is our story, we should tell it and share it because it will come from a place of deep authenticity and that cannot be fabricated. So that's what I would like to leave you with.