When he arrived in Cambridge as a first-year scholar, Farrell didn’t count on to finish up within the spirits business. “I used to be a 16-year-old after I received to MIT, and I don’t know if there are a whole lot of 16-year-olds who actually know, essentially, what it’s they need to do in life,” he says, laughing. Farrell majored in chemical engineering however says his publicity to finance, economics, and enterprise on the Institute helped him type the dream of beginning his personal firm.
To be taught the ropes, he started his profession in administration consulting. He did a stint in personal fairness, earned a grasp’s in expertise coverage on the College of Cambridge and an MBA at Harvard, and launched his first startup in sports activities and media, which he says noticed preliminary success however didn’t scale the way in which he’d hoped. Then Farrell joined Starbucks, rising to grow to be vice chairman of worldwide retail and beverage innovation.
Serving as an govt for the world’s largest coffeehouse chain renewed his personal sense of objective, and he determined to launch a model that will honor his Caribbean roots. “After I take into consideration Caribbean tradition, we’ve this uncanny potential to activate celebration. It truly is a lifestyle for us,” says Farrell. “Rum performs a task in so a lot of these celebrations. It truly is a part of the material, a part of the essence of what we think about to be celebration within the Caribbean.”
Farrell named his startup Ten to One to pay homage to the West Indies Federation, which united 10 Caribbean nations from 1958 to 1962. Though rum will be present in most sugar-producing areas of the world—it’s produced by fermenting after which distilling sugarcane juice or molasses—its origin is attributed to the Caribbean.
The corporate at the moment sells two high-quality rums sourced from a number of the most distinct and superior producers all through the area, now obtainable in 15 US states. The darkish model is a mix of rums from Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic; the white is a mixture of rum from the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. Ten to One additionally sells limited-edition releases, similar to a 17-year-old single-cask reserve.
Though the model is a relative newcomer, Ten to One has obtained practically 70 awards as of 2022, making it essentially the most embellished rum within the US. In October 2021, singer-songwriter Ciara joined the corporate as investor and co-owner. Whereas such preliminary successes have been gratifying, Farrell says he’s most excited to alter the way in which folks take into consideration rum—not only for his firm, however for the business.
“After I take into consideration what success appears like, whether or not that’s three, 5, 10 years down the trail, my hope is that we’re the model that has grow to be synonymous with shifting the notion of the rum class,” he says, very similar to how Starbucks reinvented the coffeeshop. “I’m actually hoping that Ten to One will be that on the earth of rum.”
