Hamilton is the rum behind America's tiki bars. Ed Hamilton, the sailor and author who built the Ministry of Rum website and spent decades documenting Caribbean distilleries, started bottling their rums under his own name with no sugar, no additives, and an honest label. The range is built for cocktails, it's cheap for what it is, and two of the bottles were blended for bars within a few miles of our shop. This guide covers how the lineup works, every Hamilton rum we have in stock, and which to use for what.
Shop all Hamilton rum in stock
About Hamilton Rum
Hamilton doesn't distill. It imports rum in bulk from two distilleries, mostly: Worthy Park Estate in Jamaica, for 100% pot-still rum with real Jamaican funk, and Demerara Distillers Limited in Guyana, home to the last wooden stills on earth. The rum is blended and proofed with filtered well water at Five & 20 Distillery in Westfield, New York, and bottled without sugar, coloring (with one labeled exception), or flavoring. Each bottle carries a batch number that unlocks the full production details online.
The reason bartenders built their back bars around Hamilton is simple: it's the rum that does what the recipe says. Classic tiki drinks were written for specific rum styles, and most of those styles had disappeared from the US market. Hamilton brought them back at bar prices.
Hamilton Rum in Stock at Chips Liquor
The Demerara Rums
Hamilton 86 Demerara is a blend of DDL pot and column marques aged up to five years, at 43% ABV. Tiki historian Beachbum Berry has named it one of only six rums a tiki enthusiast will ever need, and it's the Demerara rum the Navy Grog was built for. Hamilton Demerara 151 exists because Lemon Hart 151 kept vanishing from the US market; Hamilton launched it in 2015 to fill the gap, at 75.5% ABV from the same stills. It's the float on a Zombie or Jet Pilot and, unusually for a 151, sippable over ice.
The Jamaican Rums
All three are 100% pot-still rum from Worthy Park, and all three are unaged, despite what many retailers claim. Jamaican Pot Still Blonde is the purest look, lightly filtered to pale straw at 46% ABV; it's the highest-rated bottle in the range on Rum Ratings. Jamaican Pot Still Gold and Jamaican Pot Still Black are the same distillate at 46.5%, the Black colored with double-strength caramel for recipes that call for dark Jamaican rum. Reviewers put all three in the same conversation as Smith & Cross.
The Blends
Hamilton Navy Strength started as a recipe (one ounce of Hamilton 151 plus a fat half ounce of Jamaican pot still) that bartenders asked to have pre-blended. The final formula is 60% Guyanese and 40% Worthy Park at 57% ABV, finalized in 2016. West Indies 1670 Blend is the same idea at drinking proof, 42% ABV, named for the year both estates trace their founding to; Hamilton designed it as the base for an aged Daiquiri. White 'Stache, with Hamilton's own mustache on the label, is the white rum: unaged Worthy Park pot still for funk plus lightly aged column rum from Guyana and Trinidad, at 42%.
The Beachbum Berry Collaborations
Jeff "Beachbum" Berry is the historian who rediscovered the lost recipes of Don the Beachcomber, and he worked with Hamilton to put multi-rum classics in a single bottle. Beachbum Berry's Navy Grog Blend marries the Demerara, Jamaican, and light column rums the 1940s drink calls for, at 45% ABV; the recipe is on the bottle. (Berry's Zombie Blend is currently sold out; check the collection.)
The San Diego Bottles
Hamilton blends house rums for bars, and two of them are ours. Grass Skirt Blend was built for The Grass Skirt, the hidden tiki bar in Pacific Beach a short walk from our shop: Worthy Park pot still layered with DDL pot and column rums at 45.5% ABV in a one-liter bottle, designed as the base for several of the bar's menu drinks. False Idol 151 is the full-strength blend made for False Idol, the Little Italy tiki bar, led by Demerara rum at 75.5% ABV. It's what floats their Zombies and lights their garnishes. A third, Lost Voyage, was blended for Strong Water Tavern in Anaheim: a Jamaican-forward Worthy Park and Guyana blend at 45%.
Breezeway Blend came out of a YouTube channel rather than a bar: Spike Marble's Breezeway Cocktail Hour, where Hamilton was a frequent guest. It combines White 'Stache with a smaller share of Jamaican Pot Still Blonde at 42.5% for Daiquiris, and it gets compared to Probitas constantly.
The Liqueurs
Jamaican Pimento Dram is the allspice liqueur that classic rum recipes call for, made by macerating fresh Jamaican allspice berries in Worthy Park rum for seven days, at 30% ABV. Café Carib is a coffee liqueur with less than half the sugar of most competitors, built on cold-brewed single-origin Nicaraguan coffee and Worthy Park rum at 30% ABV, for Espresso Martinis that taste like rum.
Which Hamilton for Which Drink
- Daiquiri: White 'Stache, Breezeway, or Blonde if you want funk.
- Mai Tai: Jamaican Gold split with Hamilton 86, or Grass Skirt Blend on its own.
- Navy Grog: Beachbum Berry's blend, or Hamilton 86 plus Jamaican Black.
- Zombie and Jet Pilot: Navy Strength as the base, Demerara 151 or False Idol 151 as the float.
- Rum Old Fashioned: West Indies 1670 or Lost Voyage.
Shipping Hamilton From Chips Liquor
Every bottle above is in stock at our Pacific Beach shop in San Diego and ships fast to most states. For more on the two distilleries behind the range, read our guides to Worthy Park and El Dorado and the Demerara stills.