For someone who hasn’t touched rum in decades, I’m apprehensive. As instructed, I let the glass sit for a few minutes to allow the alcohol vapors to evaporate before sticking my nose in it. The rums of my youth, drunk purely for effect, were dark and funky and required copious amounts of Coke to temper the fierce heat. But this one is a revelation – complex and intense, it smells of vanilla, cinnamon and citrus peel, infused with a hint of smoke. It’s smooth, lush, even sexy. Plus, it should be $250 a pinch.

If there was a “state drink”, then dark rum would be Queensland. Queenslanders drink about twice the national average volume of rum. This is a long-standing relationship, with early rum production encouraged by the state government for the revenue it generated through taxes.

As early as 1871 there were 10 rum distilleries in Queensland, mostly centered around the sugar cane growing areas. The 11 was a traveling distillery – a boat called the Walrus, which traveled up and down the Albert and Logan rivers, taking molasses (the by-product of sugar production) from the plantations and turning it into rum in its onboard still. The Walrus came to an ignoble end in 1883, stranded on the banks of the river, its owner nowhere to be found.

The local sugar mill in Beenleigh bought the boat still and started making their own. Beenleigh Rum, although not Australia’s first, is the oldest distillery still in operation. Bundaberg Rum, colloquially known as ‘Bundy’, followed a few years later, quickly gaining favor with Queensland rum drinkers, its monopoly only now being challenged.

Virtually in the shadow of Bundaberg Rum’s facilities in the small sugarcane-growing town, sits Kalki Moon. Owner Rick Prosser is a former master distiller who spent 13 years perfecting his craft in Bundaberg before striking out on his own in 2017.

Currently, Prosser’s portfolio includes gin, vodka and other liqueurs, but rum is his true passion. “Rum is 100% changing, it’s definitely moved up the market and drinkers are looking for more premium rum,” he says.

Legally, rum must be aged for at least two years to be called “rum”, and while Kalki Moon’s wall of 200 oak barrels that once contained port, sherry or bourbon are currently aging rum, Prosser has created a “cane spirit”. (unaged white rum) and a rum liqueur. It expects to release its first premium aged dark rum in November this year.

Until recently, Substation No. 41 Rum Bar at Brisbane’s Breakfast Creek Hotel, a former power station attached to the hotel, with a selection of 500 rums, would have easily beaten Guinness World Record holder Cottons Caribbean Restaurant and Rum Lounge in London, which has 372 different drops.

“We saw the signs,” says Lance Burrows, general manager of Breakfast Creek Hotel. “The interest in rum was really growing.”

The bar, which opened in 2014, has whittled down its offering to an ever-impressive 300 from around the world, and is one of the few places in the country to stock the world’s oldest rum. Priced at around $6,000 a bottle, or $250 a pinch, Appleton Estate Limited Edition 50-Year-Old Rum was made in Jamaica to celebrate 50 years of independence. The age of the rum actually refers to the the youngest rum in the mixture. Only 800 bottles were made and only 17 of them are in Australia.

Surprisingly, given the price, the bottle isn’t just for show, says Substation rum expert Ned Roche.

“It’s…exclusive…but we sell quite a bit of it, mostly to business people who want to impress,” he says.

Not only are Queenslanders moving out of Bundy, but the way they drink rum is also changing, says Dan Gregory, manager and rum expert at Brisbane’s the Gresham.

“Were drink rum more consciously. Our customers drink better and less, rather than binge. They consider rum in the same way as whiskey or cognac.

It means the classic ‘rum and Coke’, once the default rum order in pubs across Queensland, could soon be gone.

“Of the 55 rums in rotation that we have, most of them are sipping rums, with only two [are] white rums intended for use in cocktails or with mixers,” says Gregory.

Instead, Queenslanders, whose preference for dark over white rum remains unchanged, choose to drink it neat or with ice.

This interest is slowly showing up at checkout as well. “Over the past few years we have seen an increase in the production and sales of Australian craft rum,” says James Duvnjak who manages the spirits category at Endeavor Group, owners of Dan Murphy’s and BWS.

Along with spiced rum and fruit flavors, he says, “we are seeing distillers experimenting with using indigenous Australian ingredients, much like we saw in the early days of the Australian gin wave.

This trend is accompanied by a growing interest in the notion of “terroir”, according to Gregory. “It’s easy to forget that rum is such a diverse category, but take the Caribbean as an example – each island, from Barbados to Jamaica, has different flavor profiles that come from sugar cane, environment and how it is distilled.”

At Brisbane Distillery, owner and distiller Jon Atherton is keen to express that sense of place with farm-style rums. Made from sugarcane juice, he feels this French-style rum showcases its origins in a way that molasses-based rums don’t.

With their “typical Queensland” agricultural rum, he hopes to express “the characteristics of sugar cane juice, soil, season and time”.

The West End distillery takes delivery of first crush virgin cane juice from a local farm and then ages it in ex-Pedro Ximenez casks from Cadiz in Spain. Named after the Brisbane River, Brown Snake, is aged in 40-year-old barrels and, according to Atherton, has “Christmas pudding flavors with a long, dry finish,” but with the flavors of cane juice noticeable throughout.

Because fresh cane juice is so variable, “you get a product that can taste different every time,” says Atherton. They also have a white rum and a spiced rum – the cheekily named Captain Moreton.

According to Atherton, the proliferation of “several hundred” small distilleries, with their tastings and courses, has been responsible for educating rum drinkers over the past decade.

A change to Australia’s alcohol excise duty in 2021, resulting in major tax relief for small distillers, means more are likely to emerge.

In Airlie Beach in tropical north Queensland, Mark Wyatt, co-owner of Fish D’Vine and The Rum Bar was way ahead of the curve, establishing the rum bar 18 years ago. He says he has seen a huge growth in interest and a huge increase in the availability of rums, “especially in the last five years”.

“When I first opened the bar I was returning to London and bringing back bottles of rum in my suitcase as there were only a dozen varieties available here through my liquor supplier.”