Region & History

Bundaberg Rum, known in Australia simply as "Bundy," comes from a coastal town on the Burnett River in the state of Queensland. Sugarcane grows all around the town, and wherever sugar is made, molasses is left over: a thick, blackish-brown residue that factories in the 19th century couldn't get rid of.

In 1888, a group of sugarcane farmers founded the Bundaberg Distilling Company to put this molasses to use and boost returns from the sugar business. The first rum was distilled in 1889, and the company was already selling it in other states the following year. It didn't turn a profit until 1898, though—the early years were financially tough.

The sugarcane itself depended on labor from the Pacific Islands in the 19th century. In 1863, the ship Don Juan brought 67 men to Queensland, mostly from the island of Tanna in what is now Vanuatu; over the following roughly forty years, more than 62,000 people were brought to Australia. Many were recruited with false promises, others were abducted—a practice known by the term "blackbirding." South Sea Islanders worked on the Sunnyside plantation near Bundaberg from the early 1880s onward. A federal law of 1901 banned further entry from 1904, and between 1906 and 1908, more than 7,500 of them were sent back.

The distillery itself survived two fires, but only with long interruptions. Production halted from 1907 to 1914 and again from 1936 to 1939; during the second fire, burning molasses flowed into the Burnett River and set it alight. In 1961, the polar bear mascot first appeared, designed by the agency Leo Burnett; it was meant to make the rum seem more sociable.

In 2000, the company was acquired by the British group Diageo. Distilling still takes place in Bundaberg East on the Burnett River, and the molasses still comes from the region's sugar industry.