A NEW brand of rum is arriving on the market after a long-serving bar manager became an entrepreneur.

Sun Rum was developed by Matt England, 34, after he researched the drinks industry and spotted the opportunity for a new brand appealing to younger customers.

Mr England had managed bars in Bristol, Reading, London and Bournemouth before running the Angel & Blue Pig in Lymington.

He had previously been involved with developing a gin brand and saw a new opportunity after noticing how few makers of rum there were.

“In 2016, overall sales of gin in the UK hit £1billion for the first time,” he said.

“In 2017, rum sales hit £1bn yet there are fewer than a third of the number of brands in the rum sector than there are in the gin sector.”

He said the market was dominated by brands carrying images of palm trees and pirates, stressing a Caribbean connection that might not resonate with younger consumers.

“There seems to be a massive disconnect with the brands talking about heritage, history and where they’re from, which is a world away from the people who are drinking it at the moment they are drinking it,” he said.

“I’ve tried really hard to fill that gap.”

He said the rum would appeal to a younger market “who maybe were growing up in the 1990s and early 2000s” and still liked nights out in bars.

He researched rum production and went to the Amsterdam-based company E&A Scheer to work on dozens of different blends, which he tried himself and tested on people he knew.

The final product is a blend of five-year-old Cuban, five-year-old Barbadian and un-aged Dominican Republic rum.

Mr England also worked extensively on finding a distinctive bottle and developing a logo.

He held a launch party for the brand at the Bournemouth restaurant Neo, which is among the rum’s first stockists. In Southampton, the brand is stocked by Halo and the Orange Rooms, and he demonstrated it at the city’s Seaside in the Square Festival.

The brand is also in nearly every pub in Mr England’s home town of Lymington, as well as the Cave in Milford-on-Sea.

His first order was for just over 1,000 bottles and he is adding new outlets.

“I live in Lymington, so Bournemouth and Southampton are both half an hour away and I’ll go to anywhere you can sensibly get to within an hour. If I can grow it here, I can have contact with everyone I supply,” he said.