Kuleana Rum Works readies new Big Isle restaurant

Getting into the restaurant business is something many craft beer makers have done to promote and sell their product. Now a local company making rum is about to try out the strategy.

Kuleana Rum Shack is aiming for a soft opening this month at Waikoloa Beach Resort’s retail complex Queen’s MarketPlace on Hawaii island.

The 80-seat restaurant and bar will serve as the main outlet connecting consumers with a special kind of rum that parent company Kuleana Rum Works makes from the juice of sugar cane it grows on the island.

“That’s ground zero for the brand,” said Steve Jefferson, Kuleana Rum Works CEO. “The point of the restaurant is to show our brand and what we’re doing.”

Aaron Allen, CEO of Florida-­based restaurant industry consulting firm Aaron Allen &Associates, said opening a restaurant as a showroom of sorts is an established model among food and beverage makers.

“It’s quite common,” he said.

Allen said beer and spirits manufacturers largely employ the strategy, though examples also include cafes by yogurt maker Chobani and seafood restaurants by Maryland seafood processor Phillips Foods Inc. Even outdoor grill maker Weber has its own chain of restaurants.

In Hawaii, the model has been used by local craft brewers Maui Brewing Co. and Kona Brewing Co., which operate restaurants on Oahu where they don’t make beer on the premises but sell plenty of it.

Jefferson said a goal for 2019 is to partner with a distributor to take bottled Kuleana rum into other sales channels such as retail stores, hotels and more eateries. However, the primary endeavor is the restaurant.

Kuleana Rum Shack is making its debut after about five years of planning and development that started with growing heritage Hawaiian varieties of sugar cane on a 2-acre farm near Waimea.

Initially, the business was established in 2013 as Company Rum by Jefferson and partners who include his wife, Jackie, several years after the couple tasted a unique spirit, rum agricole, during a sailing trip to the French island of Martinique in the Caribbean.

This type of rum is made by fermenting and distilling juice squeezed out of sugar cane stalks. Most rum, about 99 percent of the market, is made from molasses, a byproduct of turning sugar cane into sugar.

“It’s vastly different,” Jefferson said of rum agricole. “It’s got sort of this fresh florally flavor.”

Jefferson, who was born and reared on Hawaii island, said the agricole version of rum traced to the French West Indies impressed him as something that should be done in Hawaii with its long history of sugar plantations.

At least one other company in Hawaii is producing rum agricole, Manu­lele Distillers LLC, which began making KoHana rum from sugar cane it grows on Oahu a few years ago and operates a tour and tasting facility in Kunia.

Kuleana Rum Works, which raised several million dollars, built a distillery in Kawaihae that’s capable of producing 2,500 cases of rum annually. The company also has 45 acres of former Kohala Sugar Co. farmland near Hawi to expand sugar cane production and possibly establish another restaurant and distillery that could be a destination for tours, Jefferson said.

For the Waikoloa restaurant, Kuleana Rum Works enlisted Big Island chef and poke master Nakoa Pabre of Umekes Restaurants to run the operation. Kuleana Rum Works also retained famed Hawaii bartender Art Dea­kins as beverage director.

In addition to featuring local rum agricole, Kuleana Rum Works has created two other house rums under the Kuleana name. One is a blend of three imported and aged molasses-based rums and the other is its Hawaii rum agricole blended with a molasses-based rum from Papua New Guinea.

Jefferson said restaurant staff will try to educate customers about how rum agricole and quality traditional rum are different from cheaper versions that are often infused with spices, sugar and caramel coloring.

“It’s a huge challenge, and it’s a huge opportunity,” he said.