Be one of the first in Singapore to own a bottle of 

Samai Premium Rum from Samai Distillery,

 Cambodia’s first and only premium rum distillery and brand.

The Story

After living in Cambodia for a few years, the co-founders of Samai Distillery were in shock to learn that with such an abundance of top-quality sugarcane and molasses in Cambodia, there was nobody making rum. You can find a bunch of rice spirits and sugar palm spirits, but no local rum. Coming from Venezuela, where the founders grew up soaking in rum culture and drinking the best rums of the world, not having a Cambodian rum made no sense at all. So back in 2014 they embarked on the mission to create Cambodia's first rum distillery and rum brand, from scratch. 

Samai rums are complex and full of character, displaying a flavour profile that reflects the uniqueness of the Cambodian terroir. We source our sugarcane molasses from Koh Kong, our Kampot Pepper from Kampot, and we produce all our rums in our distillery in central Phnom Penh. We create a uniquely Cambodian product. It is a rum that Cambodians can take pride in; a rum that we cannot wait to share with the world.

Samai is the Khmer word for modern, a new generation, looking towards the future. Samai is the first generation of rum in Cambodia.

The Production Process

Samai creates hand-crafted, premium rums using high-quality, locally grown ingredients and a process that pays tribute to age-old rum making traditions. One of our advantages to create the best quality product, is that we own and control every single step of the rum production process. We buy 100% Cambodian raw materials, which in our case is top-quality molasses from sugarcane, and then in-house at the distillery we:

1. Ferment: The transformation of sugar to alcohol. Our fermentation step involves molasses and select yeast. It takes place in specialized stainless steel vats, under carefully controlled conditions. The result is a mineral-rich mash at 10% alcohol/volume, full of character and ready for distillation.
2. Distill: Releasing the spirit. We use a handmade, 1800’s-style copper alembic pot still for distillation. A rectifying lentil enables a purer distillate at 75% to 90% alcohol/volume, while keeping the rich character of the raw ingredients intact.
3. Age: Patience is the key. The distilled spirit is brought down to 65% alcohol/volume, aged in French and American Oak barrels and finished in Sherry casks. These barrels impart delicate flavour characteristics into the rum, whose character evolves in complexity, with each passing day. Our rum currently ages in our oak barrels for around 14 months average, but we are aiming for the 24 months minimum goal.
4. Blend: Subtle combination. After the aging process is finished, we taste each barrel carefully. Only rum from select barrels is expertly blended, brought down to 40% alcohol/volume and then allowed to rest.
5. Bottle: Meticulous, hand-bottled. When Samai’s distinctive flavour profile is achieved, the rum is hand-bottled in-house and ready to be experienced – complex and intriguing rums, born from Cambodia’s natural riches.

Keeping a very tight control of our fermentation tanks.

Our Copper Pot Stills distilling the fermented mash.

Our Products

Besides some experimental batches and some Limited Edition Rums that we do every year, our main products are Samai Premium Gold Rum and Samai Kampot Pepper Rum.

Samai Gold Rum

Made with best-quality Cambodian sugarcane molasses, this handcrafted rum is distilled in our 1800's copper still, 

aged in French & American oak barrels, and finished in Sherry casks. 

You will savour its natural hints of oak, vanilla, caramelized honey, and dark chocolate. 

A touch of Ratanakiri honey brings this uniquely Cambodian rum into a class all of its own, 

to be best enjoyed neat, on the rocks, or in truly exceptional cocktails.

Samai Kampot Pepper Rum

Considered one of the most aromatic and delicious pepper in the world, 

Kampot Pepper gives this rum a crispy sweet aroma with overtones of guava and eucalyptus. 

Spicy, fresh, and elegant, it adds just the right kick to this unusual rum. 

Made exclusively with Kampot Pepper from La Plantation Kampot Pepper Farm.

We are the first distillery in the world to produce a Kampot Pepper Rum.

Limited Stock

The success we have had with both our Gold Rum and Kampot Pepper Rum has been beyond our expectations, to the point that we are always running out of stock. We can currently supply to only about 50 bars/restaurants/hotels and around 12 small retail shops, only in Cambodia. Sometimes we have to reject many orders (even if we don't want to) not only from new clients and establishments in Cambodia, but also from many customers and spirits distributors from around the world. We have been contacted by many distributors from the United Kingdom, United States, Hong Kong, Australia, Scandinavia, Germany, France, Canada, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, plus multiple other countries, wanting to represent and distribute our products. We always tell them "next year, next year", as we are unable to supply beyond Cambodia at the moment. But by the end of this year we will be able to export for the first time to France and Singapore.

We number and sign every single bottle that we produce.

Currently in Cambodia we are selling Batch #7 of Gold Rum, 

and we have sold out of the current batch of Kampot Pepper Rum. Working on the next batch.

The Team

We have a really strong team with lots of experience in alcohol production, entrepreneurship, business management, start-ups & SME's. 

The star and centre stage of Samai Distillery is Moang Darachampich (pictured center below) our Production Manager & Master Distiller and Cambodia’s first and only Rum Maestro. She holds a BS in Chemical Engineering and a MS in Food Technology from the Institute of Technology of Cambodia, with over 6 years experience in fermentation, distillation, quality control, and food processing

Daniel Pacheco (pictured left below) is our Co-Founder, CFO, and Director. He holds a BA in Economics from Bard College, NY, and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Columbia, NY, and has over 7 years of experience doing business in Cambodia, mainly in his solar energy start-up. He’s also been a leader in the setup of the Cambodian Renewable and Clean Energy Association.

Antonio López de Haro (pictured right below) is our Co-Founder, CEO, and Director. He holds a BBA in Hospitality Management from Les Roches, Switzerland, and an MBA in Entrepreneurship & SME’s from the National University of Singapore, and has over 10 years experience in the hospitality industry, entrepreneurship, and starting businesses in Cambodia, Singapore and China. 

Why Singapore?

We want to do something really special for you in Singapore. The main reasons we chose Singapore as one of the first export markets is:

• We have received a great amount of interest from there, from great bartenders and bar owners, also from lots of private customers who ask for our products directly. This campaign will help us validate that demand.
• Singapore is the leading city of the Asian Cocktail Revolution, with the most interesting bars and being represented by the best bartenders in the world.
• One of our Co-Founders, Antonio, lived in Singapore for 3 years before moving to Cambodia. He really misses Singapore, so he wants to have the perfect excuse to come back often.
• Our holding company is based in Singapore, so we want to be active where our mother company is.

Our Rewards

We are not asking you for donations. We are pre-selling our Samai Rum to give you a chance to be one of the first in Singapore to own bottles of our premium handcrafted rums. We will deliver you the bottles to Singapore in mid-December 2017. Our rewards for supporting our campaign are as seen in the infograph below. All of the backers of this campaign will also receive exclusive invitations to the Samai Singapore Launch Party at Kilo Lounge, including Samai Cocktail coupons for that night.

Delivery Of Rewards To Singapore

We expect to deliver our Samai Rums to you in Singapore in mid-December 2017, tentatively the second weekend of December before the holidays. This will give us enough time to make orders and receive the new glass bottles from France, the corks from Portugal, to finalize the blend from many of our aging barrels, to go through the export process in Cambodia & import process in Singapore successfully, and to plan the Samai Singapore Launch Party Weekend. 

We are planning a broad range of events for that weekend, where you can come to collect your bottles. In case you cannot collect the bottles personally, we can arrange delivery within Singapore after the events.

Samai Singapore Launch Party Weekend

Our main idea is to have a whole festive weekend in Singapore in early December. We are partnering up with one of the coolest locations in town, Kilo Lounge, for the Samai Launch Party on a Friday/Saturday. We are also planning a Sunday Brunch at Camp Kilo Charcoal Club in Kallang Riverside Park, where you can come and pick up your bottles any time. We will keep you updated once plans are finalized.

Every supporter/backer of this campaign will also get an invitation to the exclusive Samai Singapore Launch Party at Kilo Lounge.

Samai Rum In The Press

We have been showcased in many international magazines, websites and TV shows, such as:

We were in the Booze Traveler TV Show from the Travel Channel, episode "Drink In The Zen". You can see our co-founder Antonio with Booze Traveler host Jack Maxwell tasting the Samai Kampot Pepper Rum and touring the Kampot Pepper Plantation and the Kep Crab Market. Jack Maxwell when tasting the Samai Kampot Pepper Rum for the first time describes the experience as "I think I may have found a little Cambodian Nirvana".

We have been mentioned in multiple issues from Travel + Leisure Magazine, such as in the article "Phnom Penh Gets Its Groove Back" and "The Ultimate Craft Cocktail Guide".

The Spirits Business Magazine has considered Samai Rum as one of the 5 "Rum Brands To Watch In 2017".

As we are currently producing at full capacity (we ferment and distill alcohol almost every day, and all our aging oak barrels are full) and we cannot supply enough Samai Rum to meet the demand (not even in Cambodia alone), then we need to expand our production capacity to be able to start exporting to Singapore and other countries. 

With the money raised from the pre-sale of Samai Rum bottles in this campaign, we will allocate these funds to increase production capacity specifically for the Singapore market. The production will be increased by:

• Sourcing new oak barrels to age the rum (ex-bourbon barrels from Kentucky, new American & French oak barrels, and Sherry casks from Spain).
• Sourcing the glass bottles from France and the natural corks from Portugal..
• Sourcing new blending and storage stainless steel tanks.
• Hiring one new chemical engineer & food technician.
• Rent new storage space for the new equipment.

There are other costs/expenses that are related to this campaign, such as: bank and platform fees, Singapore tax & alcohol duties, marketing, corporate & admin, operations.

The main challenge that we have as a rum distillery is that rum needs to be aged in oak barrels for years. In our case we age it for at least 12 months, but we are aiming at the minimum 24-month aging goal. This means that the rum that we distill today will be ready for bottling 2 years from now (the rum that we are bottling now was distilled 1.5+ years ago).

The good news is that we currently have over 15,000 liters of rum aging in our distillery, therefore we have enough rum that is going to be ready to supply this first Singapore order for mid-December 2017. The funds from this campaign will then be used to increase the production capacity to be able to make more rum for the Singapore market next year and beyond. 

So we are able to guarantee 100% this delivery of Samai Rums to Singapore.