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When he arrived in Cambridge as a first-year pupil, Farrell didn’t anticipate to finish up within the spirits business. “I was a 16-year-old when I got to MIT, and I don’t know if there are a lot of 16-year-olds who really know, necessarily, what it is they want 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 study the ropes, he started his profession in administration consulting. He did a stint in personal fairness, earned a grasp’s in know-how coverage on the University 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 best way 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 goal, and he determined to launch a model that may honor his Caribbean roots. “When I think about Caribbean culture, we have this uncanny ability to activate celebration. It really is a way of life for us,” says Farrell. “Rum plays a role in so many of those celebrations. It really is part of the fabric, part of the essence of what we consider to be celebration in 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. Although rum may 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 firm presently sells two high-quality rums sourced from among the most distinct and superior producers all through the area, now out there 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, akin to a 17-year-old single-cask reserve.
Although the model is a relative newcomer, Ten to One has acquired practically 70 awards as of 2022, making it probably the most adorned rum within the US. In October 2021, singer-songwriter Ciara joined the corporate as investor and co-owner. While such preliminary successes have been gratifying, Farrell says he’s most excited to vary the best way folks take into consideration rum—not only for his firm, however for the business.
“When I think about what success looks like, whether that’s three, five, 10 years down the path, my hope is that we are the brand that has become synonymous with shifting the perception of the rum category,” he says, very similar to how Starbucks reinvented the coffeeshop. “I’m really hoping that Ten to One can be that in the world of rum.”