With the popularity of whisky and gin soaring over recent years, rum has been somewhat forgotten about – that is, until now.

Here are 5 things you probably did not know about rum:

1. Although most countries in the world produce their own rum, the Caribbean still produces 80 per cent of the world’s rum. “Barbados is the spiritual home of rum as it was the first country to produce rum,” says Burrell.

2. Golden rum will be the next big trend in the spirits category, outpacing gin in the next three years according to data insight experts CGA.

3. The oldest continually produced spirit in the world is Mount Gay rum which dates back to 1703.

4. The oldest spirit in the world in recent times is a rum that was bottled in 1780 and was found in a house in Leeds, England.

5. Pirates created the first rum cocktail, bumbo, said to have come from a pirate’s recipe featuring rum, water, sugar and nutmeg. It became popular in the Caribbean during the piracy era, and with sailors who made it from their rations.