Black Gem Liquors, founded in 2018, is a minority-owned family business, founded by Robert E. Haywood Sr., along with Georgetta and Michele Haywood.
Personal Message From Robert E. Haywood Sr., CEO and co-founder of Black Gem Liquors
I started drinking rum late in my life. I enjoyed drinking a passion fruit-flavored liqueur, but it was very sweet, so I mixed a white rum with the liqueur to cut the sweet taste. (he night, I had no rum, so I decided to drink the liqueur by itself, which was bad for me. Being a diabetic, it really elevated my glucose level. I mentioned this to my daughter one day, and she said for me to make my own, thinking about others in my position. Naturally, we laughed, and she said it again a week later. I ordered flavoring from various companies to experiment. After getting the license and permit needed, I had to find a distiller to help get my formula the way I wanted it. After reaching out to a few companies, only one distiller contacted me right away. We set a time to meet, and started putting my recipe together, 15 samples later, we were off and running. This was the beginning of Black Gem Passion Fruit Flavored Rum.
My second reason for Black Gem Passion Fruit Flavored Rum is to give people a flavored rum that they can drink/sip. Rum is not just for mixing anymore. Rum is the most misunderstood of all spirits.
I only asked one thing when I started this venture in 2018: God, please help me see this through.
Black Gem is a silver rum, made in a small batch, double-distilled from raw sustainably grown brown sugar cane in a traditional pot, still with added Passion Fruit flavor (this is not a liqueur).
Look for the bottle with the GEM on top, and a CRINKLED safety wrapper.
