Working with our global charity partner, SEE Turtles, through their incredible Billion Baby Turtles programme, we’re doing what’s needed to support key nesting sites and save these adorable endangered creatures.
Here are five amazing conservation projects which will give you a feel for the sort of work everyone who enjoys Lost Years Rum is helping make happen...
Palmarito Sea Turtle Camp, Oaxaca, Mexico
The Palmarito Project has been operating since 2005 and is focused around a hugely important nesting beach for leatherback, black, and olive ridley turtles. The project also runs the Dark Nights Environmental Education Program, to provide information to people who live on the beachfront, about the importance of Palmarito for the reproduction of sea turtles and the many threats they face. Last season alone they protected 284 nests of olive ridley turtles, 120 green turtles, and 5 leatherbacks, helping to get to the ocean more than 34,000 sea turtles. The SEE Turtles’ Billion Baby Turtles programme provided financial support to help save more than 4,500 baby turtles.
Conservation des Espèces Marines, Grand-Béréby, Ivory Coast
Conservation des Espèces Marines (CEM) has been active for more than a decade, focusing on approximately 30 km of beaches west of Grand-Béréby on the Ivory Coast. CEM is a local nonprofit association and is composed almost entirely by members of local communities. The field activities are carried out by local eco-guards. Three marine turtle species nest on the beach West of Grand Béréby: leatherback, olive ridleys, and green turtles. Last season, they protected 679 olive ridley nests, 60 green turtles, and 54 leatherbacks. Billion Baby Turtles has supported this organization for the first time this year with US $3,000 expecting to help at least 1,000 baby turtles to get to the ocean.
The Turtle Foundation, Selaut Besar, Indonesia
Selaut Besar is an important nesting site for green turtles in Sumatra/Indonesia. Last season, the Turtle Foundation protected 328 nests of green turtles and 18 of leatherback. The island is also sporadically visited by hawksbill turtles, so that a total of three different species of sea turtles nest on this unique island. The Turtle Foundation is hiring and training staff from local communities and each member of the Selaut team is from Simeulue. Some of the team members were hunters themselves but now, through participation in the programme, they are aware of the importance of the sea turtles and have become sea turtle guardians. They carry this awareness with them into their communities and have been able to raise awareness of the project through community engagement. The Billion Baby Turtles programme is supporting this new project with US$ 5,000 for this upcoming season.
Conflict Islands Conservation Initiative, Conflict Island Atoll, Milne Bay (Papua New Guinea)
CICI’s ‘Safe Habitats’ programme employs Indigenous Conservation Rangers, training them on marine turtle populations, their importance to the local eco-system, and conservation techniques. The ranger’s presence along the Conflict Islands help to make local communities aware and decrease the number of illegal collectors from surrounding islands. Furthermore, to increase hawksbill hatchling success, they also collect ‘high risk’ eggs that are either below the high tide line or on a beach accessed by illegal collectors and relocate them in their hatchery on the main island of Panasesa. This project started in 2016 with just four local rangers but now they have 14, and this year they are seeking to employ a further four women to the team. This project protects green and hawksbill turtles, every year they help around 28,000 hatchlings to get to the ocean. For the fourth year in a row, Billion Baby Turtles supported this project with US $8,000.
Reef Guardians, Lankayan Island (Malaysia)
Since 2004, this project has protected hawksbill and green turtles nesting on Lankayan Island, in Malaysia. Since then, the annual nesting increased gradually from 138 nests in 2004 to 833 in 2021. Last season they protected 403 nests of greens and 124 nests of hawksbill turtles with a total of 30,763 hatchlings of green turtles and 12,311 of hawksbills. With US $3,000, Billion Baby Turtles supported this upcoming season we expect to help 12,000 baby turtles to get to the ocean.
]]>Fast-forward exactly three years and we're delighted to share the news that - following our latest quarterly payment to our global charity partner SEE Turtles - we have so far generated enough money to save a staggering 100,000 baby sea turtles!
Just think of all those gorgeous little creatures beginning their own journey into the 'lost years' (the name comes from the mysterious early years of a sea turtle's life!!) as a direct result of your purchases. What a great way to celebrate our third birthday!
Remember, every single drop of Lost Years Rum raises money for this important cause – we make a donation for every bottle sold, so you can help save sea turtles one delicious sip at a time.
That cash is being used right now to fund and support a wide variety of community-based conservation projects across key nesting sites in Latin America, the Caribbean and beyond. You can learn more about some of these here on our blog (more success stories coming soon) or by following our friends SEE Turtles.
We're only just getting going, but a sincere and heart felt thank you to all of you who have bought our rum and helped make our dream come true. It means the world.
]]>An annual coming together of people, businesses and governments, Earth Day isn’t just an awareness day – after 53 years it’s now a global movement involving more than one billion people in 193 countries! The theme this year is ‘Invest In Our Planet’ and it’s a wake-up call to the world to take action before it’s too late.
So please join in and do your bit – read on to learn more about Lost Years and find out how you can support our marine conservation mission.
How we got here
It all started one night in Jamaica back in September 2019.
Our founder, Lee, and his young family were on holiday in Negril – their last big break before COVID hit. That day Lee, a rum fan for many years, had been out to visit one of the country’s most revered distilleries, Hampton Estate, while his wife Trudy and children stayed at the resort and learned all about the sea turtles that nest in that part of the world. Over dinner that night they got talking and, by the end of the night, had hatched an idea to bring beautiful rum back to the UK from the Caribbean and sell it to raise money for sea turtle conservation.
From that seed of an idea, Lost Years was born.
Everything about our brand is the result of that conversation over a jerk dinner! The name Lost Years is a reference to the early years of a sea turtle's life. The decisions we made about packaging, the bottle we chose, the fact that we’re a zero plastic business – all of that was driven by our mission, to save more than a million endangered sea turtles.
It took a year to get everything in place – to source the best rum in the Caribbean, to identify the right charity to work with - and Lost Years finally launched at the height of lockdown, in November 2020.
Since then it’s been a rollercoaster! We’ve featured on TV three times, have been showcased across the national media and, in just two-and-a-bit years, through the work of our global partner charity, SEE Turtles, we have helped save more than 63,000 sea turtles.
Why sea turtles?
As anyone who has seen one up close will attest, baby sea turtles are super-cute, but that’s not the only reason we wanted to save them!
For us, sea turtles are in many ways symbolic of the many challenges our world faces. Our fragile blue planet relies on healthy oceans – and healthy oceans rely on sea turtles.
Sea turtles are some of the ocean’s most unique and important animals. The seven species of sea turtles inhabit every ocean and nest in more than 100 countries. Did you know you can find them nesting in the Mediterranean and it’s not that unusual to hear about lost juvenile sea turtles being spotted off the coast of the UK! They play valuable roles in ocean habitats, but six of the seven species are threatened or endangered due to human-caused threats.
Sea turtles are a ‘keystone species’, which means they play a vital role as part of their environment and have a notable influence on other species around them. Put simply, if a keystone species is removed from a habitat, the natural order is likely to be disrupted, impacting other wildlife and fauna in all sorts of ways.
Sea turtles help protect the coral reefs, which are crucial for the survival of many other marine creatures – hawksbill turtles help reefs by eating sponges that compete with them for space. They help control their pray - leatherback sea turtles, for instance, eat lots of jellyfish, which helps stop jellyfish depleting fish stocks – helping support the wider food chain and sustainable fishing.
Turtle nesting helps beaches. The nutrients left behind by eggs and hatchlings that don’t survive provide an important source for coastal vegetation.
Hatchlings are an important source of food for many animals. Birds, fish, and mammals, like raccoons, rely on plentiful hatchlings to survive during nesting season.
Sea turtles are important for coastal economies and native communities too. Many places rely on turtle watching or diving for jobs and income and a number of indigenous communities revere sea turtles as part of their cultures. Plus there are emotional and psychological benefits to seeing a sea turtle in the wild!
Green turtles grazing on seagrass is an important way to keep seagrass beds healthy. We’re only just learning about the impact seagrass has on our planet – it really is an ocean wonder-plant, absorbing carbon upto 35 times faster than a tropical rain forest!
Aren’t they amazing! And these are just a few of the ways sea turtles support bio diversity and the overall health of our oceans.
But it goes even further than that. The threats sea turtles face are manyfold and, according to some commentators, some species could become extinct within a generation or two. Imagine that – 110 million years on our planet (yes they were here with the dinosaurs!) and, sadly, they could disappear on our watch.
Global warming, plastic pollution, light pollution, human consumption, the banned trade in ‘tortoiseshell’ products, commercial fishing – all of these things have contributed to the dire situation sea turtles now find themselves in. It's no wonder just one in a thousand hatchlings make it to adulthood.
How can you support our mission?
The easiest, and definitely the most enjoyable, way to help us save sea turtles is to purchase our rum! Remember every single bottle we sell triggers a donation to our charity partner – up to ten baby sea turtles saved for every purchase. Saving sea turtles one sip at a time is what we’re all about.
But it doesn’t stop there.
If you want to get more involved this Earth Day there are lots of things you can do:
For more great ideas please checkout the Earth Day website.
Photo credit: Juan Ma Contortrix
]]>Introducing our brand new spiced rum range, Wandering Turtle Rum….
A new and different direction for Lost Years, Wandering Turtle is our debut range of premium spiced rums.
Inspired by the wandering sea turtles of the Caribbean, they combine stunning tropical flavours with warm exotic spices to create a flavour sensation. And just like the rest of our rums, every bottle sold raises money for sea turtle conservation.
We have two glorious flavours available at launch, with more in the pipeline.
First up is an incredible SILVER SPICED RUM – one of the first clear spiced rums to launch in the UK. We’ve taken a beautiful silver rum from the leading distillery in sun-kissed Antigua and married it with moreish toasted coconut and exotic spices.
Dive in and you’ll discover a seductively grown-up coconut rum accompanied by gentle waves of tropical fruit – blood orange, mandarins, lime and vanilla – all lightly spiced with warm tropical spices. We’ve taken coconut rum to a whole new level – creating a beautifully multi-faceted drink with layers of flavour.
Extremely versatile, it works well with simple mixer serves, in Tiki style cocktails and rum-based classics, or simply on its own, chilled over ice.
Alongside the silver rum we’re launching a GOLD SPICED RUM with Queen Pineapple. Undeniably Caribbean, it features gloriously smooth rums from Jamaica, Venezuela and Nicaragua, beautifully sweet queen pineapples and tropical spices.
Dive in and you’ll discover a rich pineapple rum accompanied with gentle waves of tropical fruit - oranges, limes and coconut – all lightly spiced with exotic cardamon, nutmeg and ginger. Made with barrel aged rum and infused with juicy queen pineapples, it’s a flavour sensation!
Drink straight, on the rocks, with a quality mixer or use it to turbo-charge your rum cocktails.
As you’d expect from a premium brand like Lost Years, we’ve retained our commitment to using authentic Caribbean rums and the highest quality ingredients – just because a rum is spiced doesn’t mean it has to be poor quality.
Both new rums have a touch of sugar added – a first for Lost Years – to give them a slightly sweeter flavour profile - something many of our customers have asked for. We’ve kept the sugar levels low though compared to many other brands- don’t expect sickly sweet from us!
The new line sits alongside our existing Signature Series of pure, unadulterated rums and you can buy now at £32.95 each.
]]>When we launched Lost Years Rum at the height of lockdown in November 2020, we launched with a very simple and clear purpose - to save endangered sea turtles one sip at a time!
Fast-forward and we're delighted to share the news that - following our latest quarterly payment to our charity partner SEE Turtles - we have so far generated enough money to save a staggering 50,000 baby sea turtles!
Just think of all those gorgeous little creatures beginning their own journey into the 'lost years' (the name comes from the mysterious early years of a sea turtle's life!!)
That cash is being used to fund and support a wide variety of community-based conservation projects across key nesting sites in Latin America and the Caribbean. You can learn more about some of these here on our blog, with more success stories coming soon.
We're only just getting going, but a sincere and heart felt thank you to all of you who have purchased our rum and helped make our dream come true.
]]>It's #seaturtleweek and time for the last - but definitely not least - of our 'magnificent seven' sea turtle species!
The giant of all sea turtles, and one of the largest reptiles on earth, the Leatherback turtle ranges in size from 4-8 feet in length and weighs between 500-2,000 pounds. And they can live for more than a century!
The deepest divers and the most extensive world travellers, leatherbacks can make a 7,000 mile migratory journey within 10-12 months.
The oldest of all sea turtle species, Leatherbacks have been around for more than 150 million years! They survived the extinction of the dinosaurs and thrived until the last several decades when human interactions have taken a major toll.
Over the past 50 years, the global population of leatherbacks has declined by around 40%. In some regions, the declines are staggering. The Western Pacific population has declined by more than 80% and the Easter Pacific population experienced declines of more than 97%.
Photo credits: Neil Ever Osborne
]]>It's #seaturtleweek!
The Green sea turtle is the second largest species after the Leatherback.
They can weigh up to 500 pounds, reach four feet in length and live up to 70 years.
The adults are herbivores, dining on sea grasses, seaweeds, algae and other forms of marine plant life. They get their name from the colour of their flesh (they eat so much sea grass it turns their flesh green!)
Their beak is sharp and finely serrated, perfectly adapted for grazing in seagrass beds and scraping algae off hard surfaces.
This species is the only one to come on shore regularly to bask. Basking only occurs in Hawaii, particularly the Northwestern Hawaiian Island chain, the Galapagos Islands, and in some areas of Australia.
Photo credits: Neil Ever Osborne
]]>It's #seaturtleweek!
Considered by many to be the most beautiful of sea turtles, the Hawksbill turtle is found in tropical waters around the world. They spend their time in coral reefs, rocky areas, lagoons, mangroves, oceanic islands, and shallow coastal areas.
Named for its narrow head and sharp, bird-like beak, Hawksbills can reach into cracks and crevices of coral reefs looking for food. Their diet is very specialized, feeding almost exclusively on sponges.
One of the smaller turtles, adults weigh between 100-200 pounds and reach around 2-3 feet in length. They can live up to 135 years!
Photo credits: Neil Ever Osborne
]]>It's #seaturtleweek!
One of the larger species of sea turtles, the Loggerhead turtle ranges from 200-400 pounds in weight and measures up to 4 feet in length. They can live for up to 50 years.
Loggerheads are found in every ocean around the world. Only leatherbacks have a wider distribution.
The largest concentration of nesting occurs on Masirah Island, off the coast of Oman in the Middle East. In the Pacific, their main nesting grounds include Japan and Australia. In the Atlantic, the main concentration occurs in Florida. They are also the most common species in the Mediterranean, nesting on beaches in Greece, Turkey, and Israel.
They are named for their large head and strong crushing jaw, which enables them to eat hard-shelled prey such as crabs, conchs, and whelks.
Photo credits: Ticiana Fettermann
]]>It's #seaturtleweek!
The third of our ‘magnificent seven’ sea turtles, the Olive Ridley is the second smallest species weighing roughly 75-100 pounds and being around 2-2.5 feet in length.
Named for their pale green carapace, they are the most abundant of sea turtle species. They can live for up to 50 years.
Like the Kemp’s Ridley, Olive Ridleys nest in mass – a phenomenon knows as an “arribada.” During arribadas, thousands of females may nest over the course of a few days.
The name Olive Ridley is attributed to Henry Nicholas Ridley, a botanist who encountered the species on Fernando de Noronha Island off the coast of Brazil.
Photo credits: Steve Winter
]]>It’s #seaturtleweek!
The second of our ‘magnificent seven’ sea turtles is the Kemp’s Ridley turtle.
Until recently this endangered sea turtle was on the brink of extinction, with only 200 nesting individuals recorded in the 1980s.
Thanks to strict conservation laws which protected their nesting beaches in Mexico and reduced accidental capture in fishing gear, the species has begun a slow, but steady recovery and there are now an estimated 7,000-9,000 individuals.
The smallest of the seven species, adults weigh between 75-100 pounds and measuring approximately 2 feet in length.
In the US, these turtles are found in the Gulf of Mexico and along the Atlantic coast as far north as Nova Scotia. The primary nesting grounds in Mexico are at Rancho Nuevo, in the state of Tamaulipas, and in Texas along the Padre Island National Seashore. A small number have also nested further north along the Texas coast. However, 95% of all nesting occurs in Mexico in the state of Tamaulipas.
In 1947 an arribada - a mass nesting event - comprising more than 40,000 Kemp’s Ridleys was filmed at Rancho Nuevo, Mexico. Quite a spectacle!!
They are named after Richard Kemp, a fisherman from Key West, Florida, who helped discover the species.
]]>The first of our ‘magnificent seven’ sea turtles, the Flatback is named after its flat shell, or carapace, which is quite different to the curved shells of the other six species.
The carapace is pale grey-green colour with the outer margins distinctly upturned. An adult flatback weighs 200 pounds and is approximately 3 feet in length. They can live for up to 100 years!
Flatbacks have the smallest distribution of all the species and breed and nest only in northern Australia. They are the only sea turtle species not represented in the western hemisphere.
Scientists considered flatbacks to be a subspecies of green turtle until they received separate recognition in 1988.
Flatbacks are preyed upon by Saltwater crocodiles, the largest reptile on earth. Adult females have been observed being attacked by crocs while attempting to nest.
Despite its small range and non-migratory behavior, until now this has been the least studied of the sea turtle species, perhaps due in part to the remoteness of much of their habitat.
Photo credits: Catherine Bell, Jarrad Sherborne
]]>Leading scientists worldwide have determined a healthy ocean is a critical part of the solution to the climate and biodiversity crises.
By supporting the 30×30 movement, we can protect our planet’s life support systems – specifically the interconnected issues of ocean, climate, and biodiversity. Currently, less than 17% of land and 8% of the ocean worldwide is protected.
The good news is, due to the efforts of the growing global 30×30 movement, including those involved in the World Ocean Day network, more than 90 countries have already committed to protecting at least 30% of their land and ocean by 2030.
With your help, and by working with youth and organisational leaders worldwide, together we will continue to grow the global movement to protect at least 30% of our blue planet by 2030 and safeguard our future.
Visit the official World Ocean Day website and add your signature to support this movement and help drive change.
]]>Tomorrow (June 8th) marks the start of Sea Turtle Week, a week-long global awareness programme spearheaded by our charity partner, SEE Turtles, and designed to shine the spotlight on these incredible marine creatures.
The programme kicks-off with World Ocean Day on 8th June and culminates with World Sea Turtle Day on Thursday 16th June.
Throughout this period we’ll be doing our bit to spread the word across our social channels, website and blog, so keep an eye out for daily updates and make sure you follow #seaturtleweek and @see_turtles too.
We’re also DOUBLING our usual charitable donation so that every full size bottle purchased during this period – from now through until 16th June - will now save 20 baby sea turtles, instead of the usual ten!!
]]>Our favourite time of the year is here, #SeaTurtleWeek kicks-off this Wednesday (June 8)!
A few years ago, SEE Turtles decided it was time that these amazing creatures get the Shark Week treatment, so we created this initiative to bring together the sea turtle community to raise awareness about them and the human-caused threats they face. In just three years, Sea Turtle Week has grown to one of the biggest outreach events for these marine animals, thanks to great participation by the community.
The week kicks off on June 8, World Oceans Day, and runs to June 16, World Sea Turtle Day. For the seven days between, each day features a different one of the seven species along with a corresponding threat that these animals face. The week wraps up with World Sea Turtle Day which is based on the birthday of one of the field’s most iconic figures, Dr. Archie Carr.
Sea turtles face a myriad of human-caused threats including accidental capture in fishing gear, illegal hunting and egg collection, uncontrolled coastal development, plastic pollution, and climate change. Sea Turtle Week aims to educate the public about these threats and how they can help support sea turtle conservation.
Anyone can participate using the #SeaTurtleWeek hashtag and sharing about these animals on social media. Sample posts, graphics, and more can be found on the SeaTurtleWeek.com website and on the initiative’s social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Over the first three years of the initiative, Sea Turtle Week has grown dramatically. In 2019, nearly 70 organizations participated and the effort reach more than 4 million people online. By 2021, there were more than 170 participating organizations and 12 million people were reached, along with more than 8,000 visits to the SeaTurtleWeek.com website and 3,500 followers on the initiative’s Instagram and Twitter accounts.
We hope you will join us for this year’s celebration!
Learn more:
When we launched Lost Years Rum at the height of lockdown in November 2020, we launched with a very simple and clear purpose - to save endangered sea turtles one sip at a time!
Fast-forward 18 months and we are delighted to share the news that - following our latest payment to our charity partner SEE Turtles - we have so far generated enough money to save a staggering 35,845 baby sea turtles!
Just think of all those gorgeous little creatures beginning their own journey into the 'lost years' (the name comes from the mysterious early years of a sea turtle's life!!)
That cash is being used to fund and support a wide variety of community-based conservation projects across key nesting sites in Latin America and the Caribbean. You can learn more about some of these here on our blog.
We're only just getting going, but a sincere and heart felt thank you to all of you who have purchased our rum and helped make our dream come true.
]]>You already know that we’re the rum brand devoted to saving endangered sea turtles and that, to date, we’ve helped more than 35,000 baby sea turtles begin their own journey into ‘the lost years’.
But how good is our rum and is it worth taking a risk on a new brand to try it? The answer, of course, is a resounding yes! But don’t just take our word for it.
In this age of transparency, customer reviews are important whenever we consider trying something new and that’s no different with rum. That’s why we ask for feedback from anyone who buys a bottle from us, whether it’s right here at lostyearsrum.com or at Amazon or one of our other retail partners.
We try to make these reviews easy for you to find - if you click on the rums in our online store and scroll down you’ll find genuine customer reviews collected for us by Yotpo, an independent reviews platform. Here you can see what people think of each of our rums and how they rate it out of five. With an average customer score of 4.85 so far, we’re pretty sure you’ll find something you love too!
If you prefer to buy via Amazon, you’ll find plenty of reviews there too – just go to the listing and click on the reviews icon (top right). So far we’re scored 4.4 out of 5 by Amazon buyers.
If you want to go a little further, why not check out the following ‘deep dive’ reviews by some of the UK’s leading rum connoisseurs:
Four Island Rum – by Alexandru Sandu at the Rum Barrel Blog
Four Island Rum – by The Fat Rum Pirate
Lost Years Navy Strength Rum – by the Fat Rum Pirate
Lost Years Arribada Rum - by Steve the Barman (Youtube)
Need more assurance? Just look at our awards cabinet! We’ve secured 15 awards in just 18 months – high scores and shining medals from some of the world’s toughest professionally-judged, blind-tasted spirit competitions. We’re running out of room to share all our medals, but we can now say that every one of our bottlings is an award-winner.
Lost Years was born out of a son’s love of marine life and a father’s love of rum. We brought to two together to create a spirits brand with a purpose. Our aim is to save endangered sea turtles one sip at a time, but it’s equally important that the liquid itself is a joy to sip!
The world of rum is confusing enough and there is an awful lot of poor quality product out there – so we hope this information is useful and helps you discover the joy of our beautiful unadulterated rums.
]]>An annual coming together of people, businesses and governments, Earth Day isn’t just an awareness day – after 52 years it’s now a global movement involving more than one billion people in 193 countries!
The theme this year is ‘Invest In Our Planet’ and it’s a wake-up call to the world to take action before it’s too late.
As a small start-up spirits brand, we’re doing our bit to make a difference to the planet – from our zero plastic commitment, use of eco packaging, fundraising for sea turtle conservation and off-setting by planting and protecting seagrass, the ocean wonder-plant - but there’s always more we can do, both individually and collectively. Given the huge challenges our planet is now facing, it’s time for us all to step up and make a change.
Here are ten great ideas to show your love of our planet and support the aims and objectives of Earth Day:
You can learn more at the official Earth Day website.
]]>Hot on the heels of our gold medal win for Navy Strength at the DB & SB Spring Tasting 2022, we've only gone and bagged another FOUR medals for our rums at this year's London Spirits Competition!
Some of the country’s top bartenders and spirits buyers gathered on March 23-24-25 at St Mary's Church in London’s Marylebone, sniffing, swirling, and spitting their way through a vast array of spirits. These include representatives from some of the country’s most prestigious restaurants, bars, and hotels such as the Ritz, Le Manoir, Gleneagles, the Goring, the Connaught, and Claridges.The 2022 Competition saw 447 entries from the United Kingdom as the top entrant country, followed by 323 products from Australia and 160 from the United States. Rum was the third most popular category after gin and whisky. It's a hotly contested global competition, so we're delighted to walked away with medals for all four of our rums.
Our lovely cask aged rum, Lost Years Arribada, was ranked highest this year, scoring an impressive 88 out of 100 - just two points off gold medal status! Navy Strength performed brilliantly again, scoring 87/100. Our final silver medal was, appropriately, awarded to Silver Moon, which scored 82/100. Last but by no means least, Four Island scopped a bronze medal with a score of 73/100.
We're delighted to announce yet another coveted award for the Lost Years trophy cabinet - this time a gold medal for our gloriously grown-up Navy Strength rum!
One of the industry's leading spirit competitions, the DB & SB Spring Tasting sets out to identify the very best spirits on the world stage! 100% blind-tasted by a panel of leading drinks experts, it's all about the quality of the liquid and nothing else.
A blend of pot still rum from Barbados and column still rum from Jamaica, Lost Years Navy Strength is a truly world class overproof rum which has already won a clutch of awards. Fruity and funky but beautifully balanced, it's simply exceptional.
One judge described the Navy Strength rum as: "Intense, estery, funky nose: vanilla tapioca pudding cup, tropical fruit papaya. Bright and tropical palate with pineapple, papaya and the spike of alcohol you'd expect from a navy strength without being overpowering." We couldn't agree more - it's a fruity, funky unaged rum, but beautifully smooth, balanced and drinkable. A truly world class white rum!
]]>A luxurious blend of fine Latin American rums, Arribada scooped gold in the competitive Ultra Premium Golden Rums (£41+) category of the Rum & Cachaça Masters 2022 competition, announced this week.
This particular bottling marries beautiful aged rums from Panama, El Salvador, Venezuela, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, to create a unique and delicious blend.
It’s very much in the Latin American style - column distilled so it’s a lighter, less challenging drop to drink than many high end rums. Aged in white oak barrels for up to eight years in the Latin America heat, its wonderfully mellow, warm and spicy – and it's already proving a big hit with whisky and bourbon drinkers, helping them discover the wonderful world of unadulterated rum.
With 227 entries from 87 different producers from all around the world, this year’s Rum & Cachaça Masters competition was the most fiercely contested yet – so we’re delighted to have scooped a gold medal. It’s also blind tasted, so it’s all about the quality of the liquid.
The judges described Arribada as a 'classic gold rum', 'creamy and not overly sweet with notes of tropical fruits, banana, coconut, caramel, fudge and raisins'.
Arribada - Spanish for ‘arrival by sea’ - is the name given to the mass sea turtle nesting events that take place on Latin American beaches each year. It's an appropriate name for a rum devoted to saving endangered sea turtles (as with all our rums, every drop sold saves baby sea turtles!)
]]>Brought together by premium yacht charter brand Sunsail, for whom Dee acts as an ambassador, we met up at the delightful Her Majesty’s Secret Service (HMMS) bar in Clifton, Bristol to share a few rum-fuelled and travel-inspired cocktails and to chat about her many adventures on the water.
To say Dee is well travelled is an understatement. In 2006 Dee became the first woman to sail solo, non-stop, around the world against the prevailing winds and currents and was awarded an MBE in recognition of her achievement. She has sailed around the world six times and was the first woman to have sailed single-handed and non-stop around the world in both directions. She’s also an advisor to A Plastic Planet, a fantastic charity which is fighting to reduce the use of plastic worldwide. Hurrah to that!
Dee recently led ‘Turn the Tide on Plastic’ – the first mixed gender youth team to compete in the Volvo Ocean Race 2017/18; with a strong sustainability message. The campaign raised awareness of plastic pollution in our oceans and inspired people to take action in their day to day lives.
Dee continues to highlight the vital importance of reducing our dependence on plastics and improve ocean health. As the rum brand devoted to saving endangered sea turtles, it’s a topic close to our hearts too – ocean plastic is one of many threats faced by these ancient creatures, so we’re always keen to do whatever we can to help tackle this global problem.
We talked for a few hours and covered a multitude of subjects, starting with the most important one, sustainability.
While we sipped on a Pain Killer-inspired cocktail (a nod to the British Virgin Islands, one of Sunsail’s most popular locations) Dee talked about her experience with ocean plastic, which she says is getting visibly and progressively worse. She explained how Sunsail is working hard to tackle waste and reuse materials like sails – which are repurposed into bags or furniture by local communities across Sunsail’s destinations – and dinghies, which can have a new life as fishing boats.
Sunsail have kindly broken our talk down into a number of short episodes, which you can view over at our Lost Years YouTube Channel or Sunsail's. Check them out and let us know if it inspires you to try a sailing holiday, or just one of our lovely cocktails!
Make sure you follow Sunsail on Instagram and Facebook too – there you can find the recipes for the four awesome cocktails we shared.
Photos courtesy of Dee Caffari.
]]>One of the many projects to benefit from our funds so far is located in the spectacularly beautiful Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica, which was made famous as the filming location for much of the Steven Spielberg movie Jurassic Park.
Established in 2018, Comunidad Protectora de Tortugas de Osa is a community-led organisation dedicated to protecting the nesting Olive Ridley, Pacific Green and Hawksbill sea turtles in the area, as well as providing employment and development opportunities for local people.
The organisation works closely with the marginalised illegal gold-mining community, training them so they can secure paid positions in conservation and move away from environmentally damaging activities like mining, hunting and poaching.
The two beaches of Rio Oro and Playa Carate have very high nesting numbers of solitary Olive Ridley females, as well as smaller numbers of the more endangered Pacific Green and Hawksbill species. Leatherbacks – those giants of the sea turtle world - have also been known to nest there on occasions.
In total there is an average of 7,000 nests laid across 7.5km of beach annually. It’s a large number, but they face many challenges and nests are often lost to hungry stray dogs, high tides, coastal erosion and flooding. Nevertheless, each year sees around 450,000 Olive Ridley, 10,000 Pacific Green and 700 Hawksbills hatch in the area.
This is one of a number of projects Lost Years Rum is helping support – with our funds going towards a wide range of community-based initiatives funded by SEE Turtles’ Billion Baby Turtles programme.
With your help, and in conjunction with SEE Turtles, we aim to save more than a million endangered sea turtles over the next few years.
Main photo courtesy of Comunidad Protectora de Tortugas de Osa.
]]>We’re aiming to build the perfect playlist for love and so we need your suggestions on great tracks we could include.
From AGAINST ALL ODDS to ZOOM, we’re looking to create a playlist that guarantees a day - and night - of ENDLESS LOVE. Or at least endless music.
It could be that first wedding dance, a sexy number from the past or your favourite between-the-sheets soundtrack – just great, timeless songs you CHERISH and listen to TIME AFTER TIME. And don’t worry, we don’t mind a little bit of cheese!
Don’t be shy, say HELLO, add your faves in the comments below and we’ll add them into the mix.
We’ll share our finish Spotify Playlist at the start of February – leaving you plenty of time to add more and get in the mood for love.
Then just add a few glasses of Lost Years rum, some chocolates and someone special to share them with and you’ll soon discover THE POWER OF LOVE…
]]>As we looked towards Christmas here at Lost Years HQ we got to thinking. What would make an awesome festive gift? Apart from one of our new smart gift boxes that is?! Then it struck us. How about mouth-wateringly tempting artisan chocolates and marshmallows using Lost Years Rum as a key ingredient? Welcome to our latest collaboration.
When we first came across Bitesize Bakehouse’s Jade Boswell, it was on TV. Ainsley Harriet’s Good Mood Food to be precise. We were so intrigued by her bakes, and her business, that we got in touch to see if she’d be interested in a collaboration. “I took one look at the Lost Years website and thought ‘I’m in’. I love what they do and then Lee sent me some rum to try and it was delicious. I started playing around with it and a couple of months later sent him my ‘prototype’ chocolates.”
It turns out our rum and Jade’s handmade chocolates are a match made in foodie heaven. “I quickly found that the limited-edition cask aged Arribada rum worked really well with the dark and milk chocolate, while the Four Island blend is the perfect companion to white chocolate.”
Inspired by our beautiful cocktails, Jade developed a selection of limited edition chocolates based on some of our favourite serves of the past 12 months. Here they are (click the link to see the cocktail that inspired them):
Now the range is ready, just in time for the festive season. You can see (and buy) Jade’s creations here. And all with 10% off when you use the code LOSTYEARS, until December 14th.
“The Lost Years brand really spoke to me. I try to do good with what I do just like they do. All my chocolate comes from a single-origin, fully sustainable chocolate company that puts profits back into the local community. Just like Lost Years with their sea turtle conservation work. As I learned more about the company, I wanted to join forces with them even more. I love what they’re doing and what they’re all about. We seemed like a good fit.”
We agree. With these chocolates Jade has blended the great taste of Lost Years with beautiful chocolate to create unique taste sensations. All with a nod to the cocktails we’ve created using our rum (you can see the cocktails here).
Look out for more news about our collaboration with Bitesize Bakehouse across our social media – and remember to check out our rum range and gifts for that special someone in your life this Christmas here!
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Two years ago, Lee, our founder, was on holiday with his family in the Caribbean. After touring the Hampden Estate rum distillery in Cornwall county, Jamaica, and visiting a sea turtle nesting area on a local beach, the idea for Lost Years was hatched. How about a rum brand that celebrates both great Caribbean rum and makes a difference to our planet by saving endangered sea turtles?
From the off, Lee knew he’d be building a brand from scratch, that it would have to offer world class rum, and that the business must be as sustainable as possible. Undeterred he set the wheels in motion.
The first 12 months was a whirlwind of rum sourcing and sampling, brand development, bottle designing, and distribution planning, plus, of course, finding the right charitable partners to ensure the money raised through sales makes a difference.
The result? A new range of authentic Caribbean and Latin American rums that embrace the ancient art of rum blending to deliver characterful, unique flavour profiles, with proceeds from every bottle sold going to save endangered sea turtles.
THE STORY CONTINUES…
So, one year on from that holiday, and after lots of hard work, Lost Years rum was launched online on November 9th, 2020. First on www.lostyearsrum.com, then other online spirit stores, including The Whisky Exchange, Masters of Malt and eventually Amazon. Then came a big pre-Christmas boost when well-known rum ambassador, Ian Burrell, took a bottle of Lost Years Four Island rum onto Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch. We were really beginning to get noticed.
People were responding not only to our rum, but also the story behind it, with our marine conservation ethos really capturing the imagination. Industry feedback on our products was also great, and we were delighted to quickly win a clutch of prestigious drinks awards too.
MAKING A DIFFERENCE…
Our first year has exceeded all our conservation expectations, but we have even bigger ambitions for our second year and beyond. Having already hit our fundraising milestone for US-based sea turtle charity SEE Turtles, we estimate we’ve helped a staggering 25,000 baby sea turtles make it to the water to begin their own journey into the ‘lost years’.
In fact, the first 12 months have proved so successful we’ve decided to increase our long-term goal from saving 500,000 sea turtles to saving over 1 million over the next five years.
We’re also committed to continuing to improve our own environmental performance by constantly seeking new ways to do what we do in a more sustainable way. From the start we decided to offset our carbon emissions by planting and protecting seagrass, a real eco-wonder plant, but we’re keen to go even further. In 2022 we’ll look to commission the very first formal third-party assessment of our carbon footprint, with a view to becoming certified carbon negative by our third birthday.
ONWARD AND UPWARD…
As more and more people discover the joy of our unadulterated rum range, we’ll look to add to our products with new and exciting rums in the pipeline. Our recently launched smart gift sets are already flying off the shelves – you can order yours here. We’ve also moved from purely online sales with Lost Years available in increasing numbers of bars, pubs and clubs, leading ‘bricks and mortar’ spirits retailers, independent bottle shops and even farm shops.
Over the next 12 months we’ll continue to build on this foundation and get our story out there to save even more sea turtles and introduce even more people to our ‘grown up’ rums. We’re well on our way to establishing Lost Years as an international rum brand and look forward to launching in the EU and further afield in 2022.
From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for making it a year to remember!
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