Inside the Planteray rebrand with Alexandre Gabriel
“We always say that we are a product of pleasure, making life better, and if that awakens some deep feeling of hurt, are we still on our mission?” Alexandre Gabriel, owner and master blender of Maison Ferrand, goes into detail about renaming his global brand Planteray Rum.
“Rum doesn’t need to imitate anything else,” notes Alexandre Gabriel, owner and master blender of Maison Ferrand, owner of Ferrand Cognac, Citadelle Gin and Planation Rum.
Gabriel established Ferrand in 1989, and over nearly four decades he has witnessed transformation across the Cognac, gin and rum categories.
“Rum is not finite,” he says on the latest episode of The Spirits Business Podcast. “The experiments that we are doing today are the traditions of tomorrow. That’s the beauty of rum; it’s an art form, but it’s alive.”
In 2020, as campaigns for greater racial equality grew, Maison Ferrand announced it planned to rename its rum brand, known at the time as Plantation.
“Farms are called ‘plantations’. So that’s why I chose the name ‘Plantation’,” Ferrand recalls. However: “As the brand developed, the meaning of ‘plantation’ is not just farmland; it is a lot of other things that is very, very loaded,” he adds, noting its link to slavery.
When the idea to rename Plantation first came about, Gabriel says his team at the distillery in Barbados were divided on whether it was the right decision.
“Half of the distillery was like, ‘Wait a minute, that’s gone, that’s finished. Now we’re profitable together, this is our future. Why do we want to change everything?’,” Gabriel notes. “And there was merit to that argument as well. I was scared, of course, because we’ve built [this] together as a team. We don’t belong to a big group. If we make a mistake, we cannot say, ‘By the way, can you please send a cheque?’ So, for us, these decisions were very important.
“The other guys say, ‘But we always say that we are a product of pleasure, making life better, and if that awakens some deep feeling of hurt, are we still on our mission?’
“That argument, I could not argue against, because what do you say to this?”
What followed was years of research into trademarks and name availability across the 120 markets the brand was already available in, conducted by the Maison Ferrand team in-house.
Gabriel discusses in detail the logistical challenges that come with a rebrand on this scale during the podcast episode.
Plantation today is now known as Planteray, and of the relaunch, which came to fruition in 2024, Gabriel adds: “There’s value to a brand, right? So, you’re like, are you just starting from scratch?
“I don’t know what’s right, what’s wrong. For us, it was right with what we live for, what we get up in the morning for. I felt that was the only way.
“Yes, it was a tough journey; it was a scary journey. It’s not normal that we did this [but] I think we needed to, there’s no doubt.”
The latest episode of The Spirits Business Podcast is available to listen to on all major streaming platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music. It can also be accessed for free through Acast and via the link below.
Previous episodes of The Spirits Business Podcast include a conversation with Dr Simone Loose, head of the Institute for Wine and Beverage Business Research at Geisenheim University, Paul Dempsey, sales and marketing director for Brave New Spirits, and Gernot Allnoch, partner of Mezcal San Cosme, who discussed the latest findings from the annual ProSpirits Report 2026.
Eoin Bara, founder and CEO of Tipple, a digital distribution platform, was also recently interviewed on The Spirits Business Podcast about why he believes the distribution industry needs a shake-up and how Tipple is providing new ways to approach distribution.
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