Toby Tyler Profile
Toby Tyler is the Master Blender of Afrohead XO Rum and One Drop Rum, aged in tequila barrels in the Bahamas in the Caribbean.
When he was sixteen, back in his native Sydney, Australia, Toby A. Tyler told his mother he wanted to leave school and play in a rock ‘n’ roll band. We know what most mothers would say to that, but Mrs Tyler was clearly an exception and agreed, with one proviso: Toby had to get a job. So he did, dishwashing in a local restaurant. He now owns a restaurant in the Bahamas, where he’s hobnobbed with the likes of Jack Nicholson and The Rolling Stones, as well as being Master Blender at One Drop Rum, and one of the first to experiment with aging rum in a tequila barrel.
Tyler’s journey took him traveling around the world, where he continued his mix of working in restaurants and making music, working for a time as an in-house songwriter at Warner Brothers, and along the way added an increasing interest in wine and spirits. Back in 1996 in Sydney he met his ex-wife, who was from the Bahamas. The following year they went to the Bahamas with the intention of selling a run-down property she owned on Harbour Island. He persuaded her to keep the property, which included a small restaurant and a seven-room hotel.
Over the years Tyler built the business up so that it became a high-end restaurant with one of the best wine lists in the Caribbean. This was when celebrities like Jack Nicholson and Mick Jagger took notice, as Tyler explains.
‘Mick ended up coming about three, four times to Harbour Island over the years,’ Tyler says. ‘He’s a big Bordeaux guy, not really a brown spirits guy, so I’d end up stocking him up with Bordeauxs from my cellar back every time he came in the early 2000’s. We never spoke music but we always needled each other about cricket, rugby, and anything that the Poms could beat us at! But he knows his wines well and really enjoys his Bordeauxs.’
When he took over the restaurant it had a large collection of whiskies behind the bar, but very few rums. He began building up his rum collection and winding down the whiskies, realizing that rum was far better suited to the Caribbean climate. He built up such a knowledge of rums that a couple of people suggested he should make his own.
Afrohead XO
At first reluctant, as he knew nothing about distilling, he then remembered something his mother had told him: ‘Son, you can do anything you want in this world – follow your passion!’ He approached a retired master blender and worked with an existing distillery to produce the specific rum that he had in mind. This turned out to be the fifteen-year-old Afrohead XO.
Tyler started experimenting by himself, and imported some rum from Jamaica to play around with. He met up with a friend who had a brand name but no rum, while Tyler had some rum but no brand. The two got together with a couple of other people to produce One Drop Rum, which quickly won accolades throughout the Caribbean.
Aging Rum in Tequila Barrels
Tyler had observed the growing popularity of tequila and idly wondered if he could produce a rum that would be a kind of bridge between rum drinkers and those who appreciate finer reposado and añejo tequilas. He could find hardly anyone who had tried aging rum in a tequila barrel before, apart from one distillery which had never released the finished product. Not an encouraging start, but he bought himself an ex-tequila barrel anyway. Partway through the process he wondered if it was going to work, describing it later as ‘a pain in the butt’. Why so?
‘Getting the right blend of tequila and rum flavors was easier said than done,’ he explains. ‘When the tequila notes are very strong, then the product comes across as a tequila finished in a rum barrel, which was not the goal. So we tried using rums with different congener levels, and tried resting the rum in the tequila barrels for different lengths of time, until we finally arrived at something that embodied what I had imagined all along.’
Cactus and Cane
‘Resting them at different lengths of time was the “pain in the butt”. Also at 40 percent ABV/eighty proof, nothing (no definition of rum or tequila) was really jumping out. I wanted the blend to start as a rum and finish like an añejo! So we started pushing the proof and finally got it to 50 percent ABV (one hundred proof) and there it sat perfectly for me.’
Was it worth the effort, then, of what came onto the market as Cactus and Cane?
‘Very much so. We may do it again! It’s definitely a blend you have to think about when you try. It’s confusing at first, starting as rum then the tequila finish can throw you for a little while. But again, both the rum and the tequila really do shine through.’
How much did he make?
‘We made enough to test the concept in our Bahamian market, but also have additional rum and barrels standing by to make again. Next time it will be less of a pain in the butt!’
Does he have any plans for experimenting with other barrels?
‘We’re always exploring and testing new options, so stay tuned. I’m a Scotch whisky and cognac guy too so getting my hands on some barrels from Scotland and France would be fun.’
Jamming with Ronnie Wood
Tyler’s mother’s willingness to let him leave school has certainly paid off. And he still gets to play in a band, when he’s not busy aging and blending rums and being a restaurant consultant. He even got to jam one night with Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones, who had been told about Tyler’s restaurant by Mick Jagger.
‘When I first met Ronnie back in the early 2000’s,’ Tyler says, ‘we always had a blast. We would sit out on the front balcony drinking a rum I was making back in the day, a fifteen-year-old blend from Trinidad called Afrohead Rum, until all hours of the morning. He is now sober, I think like maybe for about the last six-to-seven years – and still going strong! Great guy.’
Tyler’s band had a gig one night while Ronnie Wood was on Harbour Island. Wood turned up at the gig, and it didn’t take too much effort for Tyler to get him onto the stage and strap on a guitar.
‘Yes, I got to jam with him live and he told some great stories from his early days, starting as a bass player, using a London penny as a pick to get more sound from his amp. That wasn’t enough so he would slice his speaker to get more distortion, and it goes on. We spoke about guitars and, us both being little guys, why we preferred lighter-body Stratocasters and Telecasters. He changes guitars a lot on stage and the heavier Gibsons he’ll only use for a song or two. He was super-proud of all the songs he wrote with Rod Stewart and the Faces and more. But my memory has a rum haze so I’ll leave it at that for now!’
Photos Courtesy of Toby Tyler
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