Holmes Cay doesn't distill anything. It buys single casks from distilleries most Americans have never heard of (Fiji, Belize, South Africa, Réunion, Australia) and bottles them at full strength with nothing added, then prints the whole story on the label. In six years it's become the independent bottler American rum drinkers trust most, and it's the easiest way to taste the far corners of the rum world without a plane ticket. This guide covers how Holmes Cay works, every release we have in stock, and which to start with.
Shop all Holmes Cay rum in stock
About Holmes Cay
Holmes Cay was founded in New York in 2019 by Eric Kaye, built on the independent-bottler model that's been standard in Scotch for a century but was almost unknown in American rum. The rules are consistent across the range: single casks or single origins, bottled at cask strength or close to it, no added sugar, no coloring, no flavoring, and full disclosure of the distillery, the still, the marque, the age, and where the cask sat. Esquire has named it one of the ten best rum brands. Drinkhacker ranked a Holmes Cay cask its number one rum of 2022.
The range runs in tiers. Single Cask releases are one barrel, bottled once, gone when they're gone. Single Origin Editions bring a distillery's standard bottling to the US, often for the first time. Heritage Blends are the affordable multi-origin blends built for cocktails. Prices follow: the blends are in the $40s, the single casks run $70 to $160 and up.
Holmes Cay Rum in Stock at Chips Liquor
Heritage Blends (under $50)
Heritage Blend Ron Rum Rhum is the concept bottle: English-style pot-and-column rum from Barbados, Spanish-style column ron from Venezuela, and French-style cane-juice rhum from Martinique in one blend, at 43% ABV with no additives. It won Best Rum Blend of Different Origins at the 2025 Men's Journal Spirits Awards, and Got Rum called it a Swiss army knife bottle in the same class as Probitas and Denizen. Heritage Blend Esotico Edition is the limited version, with the Barbados component coming from Foursquare, also 43% and non-chill-filtered. Both are the Holmes Cay to buy for Daiquiris and tiki drinks.
Single Origin Editions ($45 to $60)
Réunion is a French island in the Indian Ocean, and Distillerie de Savanna is its cult distillery, which no one had imported to the US until Holmes Cay. Réunion Island Agricole is fresh cane juice distilled on Savanna's Savalle copper column, bottled unaged at 50% ABV. Esquire listed it among the best rums to drink right now, and reviewers consistently describe green olive, green pepper, and brine. Réunion Island Grand Arôme is the French-island answer to Jamaican funk: molasses rum fermented ten days with vinasse, as the Réunion GI requires, bottled unaged at 57.5%. Only two distilleries in the world still make grand arôme. For the Hampden DOK fan.
Edition No. 1 Fiji Single Blended Rum was selected with the Rumcast podcast and the blenders at E&A Scheer in Amsterdam. Unaged pot still rum blended with two-year tropically aged column rum, all from South Pacific Distilleries, the last distillery in Fiji, at 46% ABV. The cheapest way into Fijian rum, a cult category among enthusiasts.
Single Casks ($70 to $160)
Belize 2006 16 Year was Drinkhacker's number one rum of 2022. Column-still molasses rum from Travellers Liquors, Belize's only distillery, aged sixteen years in ex-bourbon oak in Belize's tropical climate and bottled at 61% ABV. Belizean rum has never been seen like this.
Beenleigh Australia 2012 10 Year comes from Australia's oldest registered distillery, in Queensland. Pot-still molasses rum aged six years in Australia and four more in an ex-bourbon cask in the UK, bottled in 2022 at 61% ABV. Holmes Cay's own notes point to a whiskey-friendly profile of vanilla, mint, and flint.
The two South African casks are the strangest bottles in the shop. MHOBA is a farm distillery near Kruger National Park that presses its own cane, ferments wild, and distills on hand-built pot stills; Robb Report named a Holmes Cay MHOBA its top world rum. MHOBA 2018 Whisky Cask aged the 2018 cane-juice distillate in an ex-Scotch whisky barrel. MHOBA 2018 Peated Whisky Cask used a barrel that held peated Scotch, which puts smoke on a wild cane spirit. Both are cask strength and divisive by design; the peated one is for the Islay drinker who also loves clairin.
Where to Start
- Cocktails: Heritage Blend Ron Rum Rhum.
- Something you've never tasted: Réunion Island Agricole.
- Funk: Réunion Grand Arôme.
- Serious sipper: Belize 2006.
- Rum geek who's had everything: MHOBA Peated.
Single casks don't get restocked. If one above is listed, it's on the shelf; once it sells through, that cask is finished everywhere.
Shipping Holmes Cay From Chips Liquor
Every bottle above is in stock at our Pacific Beach shop in San Diego and ships fast to most states. See the full rum collection for more independent bottlings and single casks.