After Sailor Jerry up and changed the formula of their spiced rum, we were curious about what people were saying. Here’s The Floating Rum Shack’s perspective.
Rum Connection
We reported recently that the UK has a new flavour profile to Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum, but we are seeing that it’s not been received with open arms…
The Floating Rum Shack
It’s true – I’m only able to speak on what I see with my own eyes of course and because I’m not in the drinks trade in a 9 till 5 (full time) sense, I sometimes only pick things up by chance. I happened to notice on Facebook that a ‘Petition against the New Flavour Sailor Jerry’ group had started and out of curiosity, I joined to keep an eye. The growth rate of the group is pretty amazing – they are rapidly becoming on a par with the members of the ‘official’ fan pages. Nearly 11,000 members strong at the last count!
Being a fan doesn’t necessarily mean that you agree with what’s being stated, but it’s not a stretch to imagine that the majority of the ‘fans’ feel this way. Certainly some of the wall posts are quite vociferous in their opinions.
I wrote an article about the ‘Petition against…’ group and to be honest, I’ve got a lot of traffic to the website because of it. I’d be missing a trick if I didn’t say that you could check the article out for yourself by clicking the link www.thefloatingrumshack.com/sailor-petition
Rum Connection
But I’m guessing that you don’t necessarily agree completely?
The Floating Rum Shack
No – you’re right. It’s not life or death. As a rum fan, I’m far more excited about sipping rums. If Zacapa changed significantly, or perhaps Diplomatico or Appleton (or a gazillion others!!!) then I might be up in arms myself. Sailor Jerry (both old and new) worked fine for me as a spiced rum which is mixed with a variety of soft drinks. In my humble (inexperienced opinion) the new flavour profile is an improvement. I’m told that it’s closer to the US version, which means that when I’m next in America I have another mini mission – which will be to test this information for myself.
Rum Connection
So apart from the fans view, what else have you heard?
The Floating Rum Shack
I admit, I do occasionally get to speak to people within the drinks trade – which is always interesting for me, but I think I might be starting to be known as the Sailor Jerry man – because it’s come up in conversation without prompting more than once!
Theories abound – mostly commercially based decision making which wouldn’t sound silly.
Unfortunately when I went along to the UK launch party (which incidentally you can read about for yourself by following the link www.thefloatingrumshack.com/new-sailor ), I didn’t ask about the demographic of the group that gave the green light to the new flavour, which in hindsight was a mistake – still who could have predicted that this would all blow up?
Rum Connection
How do you think that this is going to play out?
The Floating Rum Shack
Tough one to call to be honest… I really can’t see the old one being brought back just like that. Even if they decided to go back to the old flavour, there’s going to be a significant time lag as production switches and then ramps back up!
The damage to the bottom line is what worries me. I’m keen to see the rum market grow in the UK. If a percentage of the SJ fans swap to a different spirit (other than rum), then that’s no good for anyone.
A bold move would be to re-instate the old flavour as a supplement to the range, rather than a replacement. Call it ‘Sailor Jerry Extreme’ or something like that. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if this is already being considered, if only for commercial reasons. It will obviously take a few months to see what effect there has been on the bottom line (if any), but by then the damage could have been done and a whole load of consumers carefully brought on board (as it were) might well now be lost at sea… Sorry for the crappy nautical jokes!
And just in case anyone wonders – the captain of TheFloatingRumShack.com is not Sailor Jerry – we are not affiliated in anyway!
Tagged: News
March 17th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
You may be right that the new flavour works for some people but what most of us miss is the taste of the old recipe. As a long-standing rum drinker myself, i’d love to see the rum market grow too. SJ were managing this until the recipe change. It’s also the way that fans of the old taste have been treated and patronised that has become a problem. So much so that i’m even willing to pay good money to host a site supporting the Facebook campaign. If you remember, New Coke performed better in blind taste tests but look how that panned out!
March 18th, 2010 at 2:41 pm
Mark – I’m more and more amazed by the reaction. It really seems like the ground work wasn’t done properly.
I’d love to see the stat’s for the http://www.sinkthesailor.co.uk site – this thing has momentum.
Glad I got my two bottles of original on the rack – might be collectors items…
If the original Sailor Jerry doesn’t come back – then there’s a flavour profile out there that will hit all the right notes with a large audience – think about it eh? The real SJ – a promotion just waiting to happen.
April 4th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
The old taste was something that I always looked forward to and as someone who only enjoys spiced rum, the loss of a very distinct and original flavour for a more bland dark rum taste, which I don’t enjoy, is very much a loss. I hope they bring back the old taste in some form as I had no warning and didn’t get a chance to stock up.