From Blockchain to Bottle: Mark Reynier Uses Technology to Form His Spirit Brands

(Photo: Renegade Rum Distillery/Facebook)

Blockchain technology is being used to create transparency in the spirits industry. If you are familiar with Mark Reynier you know he is a proponent of technology and terroir as showcased by his spirit brands, Waterford Whisky Distillery and Renegade Rum. 

As discussed in a previous article about Renegade, this new distillery is putting sugarcane terroir at the forefront of its brand. The distillery has also incorporated state-of-the-art technology for efficiency and low environmental impact. 

In a recent interview with Fortune, Reynier described how a proprietary blockchain-enabled system called ProTrace allows users to track their product from seed to bottle. 

“It’s not just marketing bullshit,” Reynier said. “It’s a validation, as well as a proof of concept.”

The group head of technology for both distilleries, Cain Dirrane worked with his team to create ProTrace as a custom blockchain, which was implemented in 2019.

“The whole production—from the raw product intake to the distillation process to the casking and aging—and then the finished product is all on the blockchain,” Dirrane said. “If anybody wants to validate externally, they can see all the processes that happened.”

Each bottle of Renegade Rum comes with a QR code called a canecode that shows the processes each rum went through.

Dirrane and his team are working to share their technology and not be alone in this push for transparency. The white paper has already been published online, which is a paper written to explain the philosophy and operation of the technology. They are planning to make the code and ledger open source, and publish it online next year. 

“It’s really a counter to the nonsense that’s spouted around the world by different sales guys and brand owners or whatever,” Reynier said. “Our process is so specific. And because we’re small guys in a world of multinational companies, I have to be able to verify what I say.”

Renegade Rum has already launched several pre-cask or unaged rums. It has been said that the first mature bottling will be released by the end of the month. 

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