Plantation Rum Is Finally Changing its Name, to “Planteray Rum”

After years of seeming indecision and consumer criticism, Maison Ferrand’s Plantation Rum name is finally undergoing the name change that it first promised way back in June of 2020. Now to be known as Planteray Rum, the announcement was made today by Maison Ferrand owner Alexandre Gabriel from the West Indies Rum Distillery in Barbados. The first product to bear the Planteray Rum name will be Cut & Dry Coconut Rum, with other brands following as existing stocks of custom bottles are depleted.

According to Gabriel at said press conference, the new name “pays homage to sugarcane, the PLANT that gives birth to the rum, and the sun’s RAYs that are essential for sugarcane growth and ripening.”

Uhhh … alright, I guess both of those things are true. In truth, this new name feels somewhat awkward, destined to be misread as “planetary” among other things, but it seems clear that a choice was probably being sought that didn’t differ too much visually from “Plantation,” while leaving the negative racial connotations of that word behind. The Plantation name had been widely criticized for years but caught much wider attention during the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020. Before that point, representatives of the brand had simply fallen back on explanations such as saying that “plantation” was simply a reference to the word’s meaning of “farm” in the French language, but that stance seemed to change in late June, 2020 when the company put out a press release acknowledging the word’s historic connection to the slave trade, saying the following: “As the dialogue on racial equality continues globally, we understand the hurtful connotation the word plantation can evoke to some people, especially in its association with much graver images and dark realities of the past.”

Thus began the long and seemingly arduous period of Maison Ferrand–which also owns Citadelle Gin and Ferrand Cognac–searching for a new name for the brand. When that period stretched past multiple years, it further incensed activists who accused the parent company of dragging its feet on the name change, or hoping that the passage of time would make the name change unnecessary. Alexandre Gabriel, on the other hand, suggested that it was instead the complexities of international business and trademark law that considerably slowed the process. In a 2022 interview, he called it a “daunting and lengthy process,” saying that the final name needed to be one the company could use in more than 100 countries where it has distribution.

It would seem that Planteray Rum is that name, odd though it may sound at first blush. Regardless, it could be quite a while longer before the name starts showing up on familiar Plantation Rum brands in the U.S., as the company works through a sizeable supply of custom glass embossed with “Plantation.” Eventually, however, the new name will appear front and center on all the company’s products, with the rest of the labels remaining unchanged. Here’s hoping that “Planteray” doesn’t turn out to be insensitive in some other manner, when all it said and done.

Jim Vorel is a Paste staff writer and resident liquor geek. You can follow him on Twitter for more drink writing.