SEPTEMBER, 2021
Like most Trinis these days, Marc Farrell is talking passionately about rum. However his passions extend past cause celebre.
Over an afternoon zoom call in October 2020, Farrell discussed the brand’s purpose, his journey to it and the possibilities sealed in the company’s transparent bulbs.
Ten to One’s sobriquet evokes visions of a wild night with Slinger but also winks to the mercurial nature of Caribbean joy. The way Carnival week melts into one long day for instance.
It’s really about the connecting fibres running the region, the things that make us more than just a good time.
TTO’s Dark is a 8 year old blend of Dominican, Bajan and Trinidadian, it’s White inserts fresh notes into an unaged pot and column still blend and the 17 year single cask Trinidadian Reserve brings some understated calm to the imprint’s ’expressions’.
Founded in 2018, Ten to One seeks to invite outsiders to the conversation, to understand the accents. The spirit, in essence is a homegrown storytellers ‘Cote Ci Cote La’ to the uninitiated which just happens to be unfolding in an era when identity and complexity are on the front page.
I just wanted to get to how you got to this place, how you arrived at Ten to One in your career and what in your educational background led YOU HERE?
MARC: My educational background and sort of what led me into the field are somewhat different things, you know? My quick story is; born and raised in Trinidad & Tobago, first 16 years or so of my life living in Trinidad. CIC, St. Mary’s College alum. I left when I was 16 to come here (U.S.) for college, I went to MIT for undergrad I studied Chemical Engineering as my first port of call obviously I’m a long way away from MIT chemical engineering now.
But after that I did a Master’s in Public Policy at Cambridge University in the UK. My first job out of college was in management consulting, I worked at a company called Bain & Company, amazing strategy consulting, management consulting firm, focused primarily on consumer retail. I did private equity in the UK for a year and a half with Fidelity Equity Partners, helped them to launch a new office over in the UK and Europe, and then went up went to Harvard for business school.
I was at Harvard from 2008 to 2010, really interesting time to have been at school, just, if you think about the financial crisis of 2008, I mean, some similarities to what we’re experiencing now.
I think a lot of folks who were in my class, at the time, were asking these questions about, what the immediate future might hold.
And maybe rather than diving into sort of the standard corporate jobs or corporate undertakings, you usually expect a bunch of Harvard guys to get into, a lot of folks kind of decided to just to go the entrepreneurial route.
I was one of them and in 2010, I actually started my first business here in the US, which is a sports and media company, we were focused on working with professional athletes, both to kind of manage that content across the different social media platforms, and also to find ways to monetize that through e-commerce.
Really cool business, interesting platform to have been for about five years but once I had kind of gotten sort of plateaued and really gotten as far as I could with that, I actually was lucky enough to meet Howard Schultz, who is the founder and CEO of, of Starbucks, in 2015 really incredible guy, amazing entrepreneur, highly inspiring and highly inspired.
I think a big part of my decision to move out to Seattle to join Starbucks was really seeing the opportunity to work with a guy like that, who has an incredible, I mean, not just an amazing track record of success, but I think, really amazing entrepreneurial vision as well.
I joined Starbucks in 2016, I was part of the executive team, I think I was Starbucks’ youngest executive at the time, 32 or 33 I ran our e-commerce business for a few years and also ran a part of the retail business for Starbucks as well. But really none of those things in my background I tied to rum specifically, I think the common traits were consumer focus, for sure, on a number of different stops that I made along the way and then having had a chance to see a number of inspiring and incredible entrepreneurs up close, I think Howard being you know, probably the most prominent and most shining example of that.
I think that was a big part of the catalyst for my own hunger to sort of come back out and do something on my own. I think it’s very interesting when you can look at somebody like that, and be a part of their story and focus on helping them to realize their dream and as a young entrepreneur it actually makes you ask the question, ‘what would it look like to begin to, to build something in [my] own likeness, through a specific lens of who you are, where you’re from, how you see the world. And I think in a lot of ways, that’s really where the ambition and the idea for Ten To One comes from.
As you know, it’s a Caribbean rum.
We’re trying to tell the story of not just rum but rum culture and Caribbean culture through what we think is a more elevated, more inspired, more authentic lens some of that maybe wouldn’t be as familiar to a consumer who is sitting in Trinidad or Port-of-Spain or in Kingston today but certainly if you are a consumer in the US at the moment, you see a lot of folks who have these preconceived notions of it as a lower end spirit.
It’s always in these slushy cocktails, a daiquiri, I think for a lot of consumers [in America] that ends up being tied to these old post colonial vestiges, pirates, plantations, sea monsters, fables that don’t always celebrate a more a more authentic reflection of Caribbean history, Caribbean culture, Caribbean heritage.
And I think that’s where, as somebody who’s from the Caribbean, who spent a great deal of time living in the US, I think we have a unique opportunity to bring something to life through that and through the brand.
So that’s the story of how and why I decided to start the brand. It’s not that I have a long track record in the spirits industry or anything like that. But consumer background entrepreneurially minded, and over time became obsessed with this idea of how we could tell a story of the Caribbean and of rum through a more unique and more personal lens.
Do you think that it’s still viewed even with some more elevated options, do you think it’s still viewed in that kind of New World kind of way and how can TTO affect the elevation of the spirit world’s perception of it?
MARC: The answer to the first question is absolutely, yes. You can see that manifests even if you look at the distribution of price points in the market For example tequila has made this ascension over the last 10 to 15 years where most of the tequila we drank in college was sort of on the lower-end, lower price point, plastic bottle stuff, usually priced at $20 or lower.
If you look at tequila in the US market today over 60- 65% of the market is now priced at 20 bucks or higher, so tequila has made this transition into a premium or premium eyes spirit. Same thing is true. If you look at a mezcal, same thing is true, if you look at gin, for example.
If you look at rum, that number, if you look at the volume price above $20, is only 15%, one- five, the vast majority of the volume, so this is actually a function of my opinion, it’s actually borne out in the data. The vast majority of the volume sits at that $20 price point or below.
so most consumers as they’re interacting with rum today, are interacting with it in a very specific mindset a very specific way this idea of rum again, being sort of, like I said before, lower end, mixable a lot of a piña coladas slushy strawberry daiquiri from spring break in Cancun the narrative is always a little bit kitschy.
I’m often telling people that if they came to Trinidad tomorrow, we have no pirates that I’m aware of we have certainly tried to move beyond the plantations and the plantation culture and so the narratives that ended up getting attached around really just on part of our everyday, our everyday culture, on our everyday consciousness.
Now to answer your second question, which is how do you begin to move people away from that? It’s always easy when you start a brand to see what it’s not i’m saying 10 to one, it’s not those things, but it’s a more challenging proposition to see what the brand is.
And we were really focused on creating a very positive spin on the view of culture and the view of storytelling that we want to offer it’s not enough to say we don’t do pirates and plantations, right, I talk about offering a much more contemporary view of Caribbean culture grounded in the the elements of the fabric of our society, the way we interact with one another.
I talk a lot about this idea of celebration, right? You take something like celebration as it comes to life in the Caribbean, from Trinidad. Celebration, I always tell people can be as big and as expansive as Trinidad Carnival, can be as small as you and your family having some drinks by the beach, by the banks of a river.
It can be super high-brow and fancy, as we know, can be super low-brow and simple and rustic and really kind of painting all of those corners is a big part of what celebration means to us as a people.
So [the question I asked] how do I find ways to shine a light on that through our lens in a way that hasn’t been done by other brands before?
From the origins of the name to the design of the packaging, to this idea of creating these Caribbean blends, you want every piece of the brand to feel appropriately intentional and feel like it reflects those elements of Caribbean history and culture and heritage that I think too often have been left to the side I think we’ve been kind of marginalized in the narrative for too long.
How do you think you can communicate multiple personalities or multiple facets of what it means to be Caribbean through the Ten to One story?
MARC: That’s a good question and I think you do it by trying to present it as honestly, as holistic of a story as you possibly can.
I think of it [right now] as a very reductive thing, almost like over time, you’ve kind of stripped out pieces of the story to come to like one very single reductive, short hand view, or one caricature. That’s what caricatures come from, right. It’s very ‘caricaturized’ very narrow, somewhat trope-ish narrative.
You have to be willing, number one, to be sufficiently brave to put some more unvarnished stories and storytelling out there. Yes, the Caribbean has beaches, but every beach is not a resort, right? So let me take you on a tour of the beaches, whether it’s on the North Coast of Trinidad or down the coast of Barbados let me show you the actual people who occupy those spaces, let me find ways to elevate their stories.
And some of those things, maybe were harder to do 15 or 20 years ago, where you have a single box. I have a billboard in Times Square, or I have a television program on the CBS Nightly News. I think now when you have new tools at your disposal, go look at what we’re doing on Instagram right now on social media.
We spend a lot of time focused on this idea of what we call Caribbean made. Caribbean made doesn’t mean you have to be Trini with a Trinidadian passport. I mean, if your mother, your grandmother’s from the Caribbean, you are Caribbean made.
If you’ve been to Trinidad, Carnival, three times, or fallen in love on the beaches of Montego Bay, that to me is Caribbean made, if you grew up here in Brooklyn or the Bronx or Harlem and you have been inspired by Caribbean music, Caribbean art, Caribbean fashion that to me is Caribbean made. And for us, as a brand, we’re trying to wrap our arms around a much bigger, broader, more expansive view of what this idea of Caribbean made is meant to be, what it’s meant to espouse.
You want people to feel like they can be a part of that story, they can be co-architects and collaboratively telling that story. And now we have more channels at our disposal to do that. I’m even talking about things like ‘Poverty is Hell’ or you know, some of the struggles we’ve had as a region.
Every region, every race, every nationality around the world can kind of cite some of those struggles but I think so much of the beauty of Caribbean culture, Caribbean storytelling comes from the flip of that, which is what we’ve been able to achieve in spite of it, the little bit of the little engine that could.
They’re are so many stories of our heroes who have been able to overcome, I don’t think we shine enough light on those things, we don’t celebrate them enough and so through this lens of Caribbean made, can we begin to do more of that and make it a part of our ongoing operation I think the ethos and the fabric of the brand is super important to us.
On the topic of heritage, what kind of role do you think your own heritage and upbringing played in your continued development? Personally and then we can discuss how that has transferred to business.
MARC: Yeah on the personal level massive, massive, I’ve lived between the US and UK for 20 years now. I come to Trinidad and Tobago three times a year when it’s not COVID so I’m decidedly Trini. I only have one passport Trinbagonian is what I am. I used to say to people a long time ago, there’s something that’s to me very special about growing up in a way where you’re sort of looking up at the world.
When I say, looking up, I don’t mean in a way where you’ve been subordinated, I just mean, when you’re from a small country, you’re sort of forced to understand things that go beyond your own borders, right? So when you grew up in Trinidad, you have a sense of what’s happening in the US you’ll have a sense of what’s going on in the UK, maybe Germany, you know, further afield kind of pick your place certainly growing up in a multicultural society has proven to be an incredible privilege that we have.
To me, culture, cultural understanding is almost like being able to speak multiple languages. So you talk about being fluent in French and Spanish and English, but you can actually be culturally fluent and culturally fluid as well.
I think that to me and reflecting on having grown up in Trinidad, that’s probably the single biggest gift that I’ve been given even now I describe myself as somebody who has one foot immersed in everyday Trini or Caribbean culture, another foot that’s immersed in everyday US consumer culture and this kind of fluidity and the ability to kind of navigate those different spaces, a lot of that comes from my Trinidadian upbringing, without a doubt.
And on the business side. Are you guided by any, anything that you would have learned as part of your upbringing?
MARC: Yeah a tonne to me, my hope is that, ultimately customers will decide whether this is true or not, but my hope is that when you look at elements of the Ten to One Brand you’ll see it through the lens of somebody who was born and raised in the Caribbean
Down to the origins of the name, the logo being the Scarlet Ibis, the riffs on the old shipping labels which tell the stories of colonial sugarcane making its way from the Caribbean to ports abroad. The idea of bringing a Caribbean blend to life in the bottle itself. These different distillation methods and terroirs and production methods that all come to life, for Ten to One, to me, all of those things are super important and very critical and a very literal manifestations of my Caribbean upbringing.
But then when you make the switch over to the brand, the brand story, let me tell the story of Caribbean made, let me talk about our history, our heritage and our heroes I’ve been just having a real appreciation for those things and a real desire to to have them known and understood on a far, far bigger stage on a far larger scale is really kind of core to the ambition of the brand.
Who’s the ideal Ten to One drinker who are you targeting just across the spectrum?
MARC: I think you can define the ideal Ten to One drinker in terms of their actual consumption, consumptive habits and you can describe them in terms of their psychographic, the way they move through the world.
In terms of consumption and consumption habits, the ideal Ten to One drinker think can be a couple of folks; One is maybe somebody who’s looking to trade up or looking to elevate their game in the rum category. So maybe again, you had a foray into one of the starter spirits I won’t call them low end, but one of the starter spirits, and you’re looking to find your way into a more, more refined palate, more versatile executions of different cocktails, more elevated sipping rums and I think that’s a big part of who our core customer is.
I think we also see that there are lots of folks who do what we call in the business drink portfolio, so maybe they don’t drink rum all the time. But they have a premium tequila, a premium gin, a premium mezcal, a premium whiskey or bourbon, and they’re sort of looking for that complement in the rum space to kind of fill their portfolio. I think for us, we’ve seen that that’s a major opportunity as well.
You’ll find folks who might drink vodka and mezcal otherwise but are looking for a rum that they can that they can experience in a similar vein. that’s kind of how I think about the customer in terms of what they would consume.
Our customer from a psychographic perspective, it actually dovetails with what I said before; somebody born in x grew up in y have an affinity for z. They have this understanding that kind of…venturing off the beaten path and they find joy venturing off the beaten path, creating their own story. We talk about people who believe in this idea of elevated but not exclusive, we want this to feel like a very premium, very elevated rum, but this rum has no velvet ropes, our brand has no velvet ropes, it’s not designed for the exclusion of others.
So somebody who has a very, very foundational and very powerful sense of self, while still remaining very inclusive in their habits, while remaining very and socially fluid as a part of that.
Was there a great amount of Caribbean expertise involved in creating the final product?
MARC: I think we have a real sense of appreciation for the differences, if you’re here in New York, and you’re having a lime with a Trini, a Bajan, a Lucian and a Jamaica, etcetera everybody always has this conversation about, you know, whose food is the best, who has the best music, who has the best rum.
And let’s talk about the rum piece for a second, I think developing a real understanding of how and why rums are different from around the region has been a very critical ingredient in coming up with what we think is as an extraordinary blend of rums.
You look at Jamaica, for example, that has a history of making amazing pot still rums, using the pot distillation method; usually funkier, grassier, more herbaceous type rums, usually higher proof, so you’re gonna get a rum that’s hundreds 120 plus proof usually. Versus a Dominican rum or a Trini’ rum that may be a little bit drier in its orientation, certainly more column stills those that come out of there.
Remember our soil composition looks very different than it would in Jamaica. You actually will hear a lot of mixologists talk about the taste profile of a Trindadian rum and getting some of those petrol notes, and, I think, some of them do also drink a little bit lean and a little bit dry in that regard.
So ‘how do you take some of those elements, some of those notes that you find in Jamaica versus Barbados versus Trinidad, etcetera and bring them to life in a blend?’ was, yes super critical in developing a view of the ideal blend that we wanted to create.
The rums themselves, if you take our dark rum for example. With our dark rum we wanted to create something that was extraordinarily versatile, the single most important word that I use to describe our dark rum, you want to have something that’s incredible on it’s own so you could sip it neat, you could sip it on the rocks, add a splash of soda water or coconut water if you want to drink it that way.
But it could also play in these really elevated craft cocktails so you want to be able to create an old fashioned or Manhattan or Negroni, with that dark rum which some of premium rums struggle to do not just because of price point, but actually because of taste profile.
They don’t have enough sort of complexity, enough layers on the palate to really make a famous New York mixologist excited to incorporate it into their cocktails, and with Ten to One, with that blend you have the blend of the pot and the column still, you have the ex-bourbon barrel aging, certainly the no added sugar, no color, no flavoring is helps a ton too.
You have a little bit of that dryness on the finish when you’re sipping it, there’s lots of arrows in the quiver, as I like to call them, right, that all lend themselves to making a pretty effective incredible blend.
what does the future hold for 10 to one, what are you what’re your plans going forward?
MARC: The plan is to keep building, build as ambitiously and effectively, hopefully successfully as we possibly can. We’re still very much in the early days, you know, we spent our first year in market, you know, just in New York.
We wanted to kind of really create a case study of success here and a blueprint for how we will scale the business elsewhere we’ve just recently launched five new markets in the Midwest and in the southeast of the US, including Georgia, and Chicago, Illinois, we have DC coming on line soon we have Florida and California following up shortly as well in addition to our e-commerce footprint and some of the things we’re doing there.
I think for us [it’s also] trying to do all that we can to help consumers in the US really reimagine rum at Ten to One we talk about this idea of rum reimagined, I want to change everything that you thought you knew about rum, as a consumer here in this market.
In an ideal world I would love to look back on it five years, 10 years from now, and have people sort of point at that bottle and say that it was the rum, it was the spirit that helped them to kind of reframe the way that they thought about the category.
We are consistently trying to challenge your expectations with everything that we do about the brand and to me, if we’re successful, we would have been able to change hearts and minds, not just in terms of the product side, like the rum’s amazing it changed the way you thought you could drink rum or consume it.
But again, going back to what we said before about the cultural component as well, ideally, we would encourage people to kind of take a second look or a deeper look or a slightly more nuanced look at Caribbean culture and maybe sort of start to reframe those ideas in their minds in a way that they haven’t done before.
Interviewer:Jovan Ravello Illustration by: Nicholas Huggins Photography courtesy Ten To One
