Distilled in 2021, the first Tom Thumb’s Reserve Rum is a blend of two separately matured parcels. Batch one was individually aged across a mix of casks for three years, then blended in precise proportion – 30% red Bordeaux, 30% Australian pinot noir, 20% Oloroso Sherry, 10% Mistelle sherry and 10% Cognac, before resting a further 20 months in small ex-port casks. Batch two took a different path – two years in charred American oak, followed by a decant into an ex-Sami Odi wine cask, gently toasted on-site at Red Mill in 2024.

The two batches were finally bottled together and rested for three months in a 1000-litre French oak foudre ahead of bottling. The result is a marriage that rounds out the blend’s fruit, spice and oak characters.

The name honours a piece of Red Mill’s own advertising history- the Red Mill character Tom Thumb. In 1946, Bill Fesq returned home from six years at war in the North Sea, where he had captained a motor torpedo boat, to find the family’s business barely surviving. With sailors and servicemen returning to Sydney’s pubs in droves, Red Mill set out to become the drink of the working harbour, launching a new campaign built around the ideas of Sydney’s Harbour Rum. Margaret Fesq, an amateur artist, sketched a larrikin Aussie calling out across a crowded bar – It’s your shout! and it’s Red Mill Rum. An image soon appeared on buses, trams, trains, pubs and billboards across the city. Over time the anonymous character earned a nickname of his own, Tom Thumb.