The Caribbean Rum Awards Return to St. Barth for 2026 — With a Week of Tastings, Parties and the World’s Premier Rum Competition

The annual event, owned and produced by Caribbean Journal, returns to St. Barth with platinum sponsors Tradewind Aviation and WIMCO St. Barth Properties.

The Caribbean Rum Awards are returning to St. Barth for their ninth year — anchoring a week of tastings, judging, beachfront programming and the most-watched rum competition in the Caribbean.

The annual event, owned and produced by Caribbean Journal, has emerged over its nine-year run as the premier rum competition in the region — a week-long celebration of Caribbean rum craftsmanship that gathers distillers, sommeliers, rum experts, brand executives and rum enthusiasts on one of the most-coveted islands in the Caribbean for a curated, multi-day program.

The 2026 edition will be held on St. Barth, with a five-day schedule built around the competition itself and a series of signature parties, tastings and culinary moments across the island.

The Schedule

The week opens on Monday with the signature White Party at Les Îlets de la Plage, the long-running beachfront kickoff of the Caribbean Rum Awards week.

Tuesday is the heart of the program — the official Rum Judging, with the Caribbean Rum Awards panel evaluating entries from across the region’s distilleries in a closed competition that determines the year’s winners.

Wednesday brings the signature Beach Party, one of the most-anticipated nights on the St. Barth social calendar.

Thursday is the exclusive VIP Rum Tasting, an invitation-only evening featuring this year’s competition entries alongside the broader collection of Caribbean rums that have come to define the Caribbean Rum Awards experience.

The week culminates on Friday with the signature Rum Pairing Dinner, a multi-course evening that pairs Caribbean rums with chef-driven cuisine in one of the most-loved nights of the event’s annual calendar.

Why This Matters for Caribbean Rum

The Caribbean Rum Awards have become the premier rum competition in the Caribbean over nine years of programming, with a judging panel and a competition structure that have helped elevate the global profile of Caribbean rum at a moment when the category has been gaining significant international momentum.

The competition is judged in an annual international blind tasting by a panel of global rum experts, with a field that runs across eight categories — spanning the breadth of Caribbean rum from white and aged molasses-based expressions to the full range of rhum agricole, the iconic sugarcane-juice rum of the French Caribbean. The most prestigious of those categories are the Uber-Premium Molasses and Uber-Premium Rhum Agricole divisions, comprised exclusively of rums retailing for more than $400 per bottle — a true collection of heavyweight rums. The winners of those two categories then go head-to-head for the event’s signature title: the World Championship, awarded annually to the world’s greatest rum and widely considered the most prestigious individual rum honor in the Caribbean.

Caribbean rum has long been one of the great underrecognized spirits categories on the global stage, with the region producing some of the most distinctive aged, blended and single-cask rums in the world. The Caribbean Rum Awards are designed to spotlight that craftsmanship — recognizing the distillers, the master blenders and the brands that have shaped Caribbean rum into the category it is today.

“What started as a celebration of the region’s distillers has become something genuinely larger — a platform that puts Caribbean rum in front of the global audience it has long deserved,” said Alexander Britell, founder and editor in chief of Caribbean Journal and founder of the Caribbean Rum Awards. “The talent coming out of the region’s distilleries right now is extraordinary, and the Caribbean Rum Awards exist to make sure that talent gets the recognition it has earned. We can’t think of a better place to do that work than St. Barth, and we’re proud to be entering our ninth year of this event.”

The Partners

The 2026 Caribbean Rum Awards are presented in partnership with two platinum sponsors — Tradewind Aviation and WIMCO St. Barth Properties — both of which have become central to the event’s experience on the island.

Tradewind Aviation is the premier private aviation operator into St. Barth and the Caribbean, with regularly scheduled service between San Juan, St. Thomas, Antigua and St. Barth’s Gustaf III Airport, alongside private charter service across the region. The carrier is one of the most-used arrival options for Caribbean Rum Awards guests heading to the island.

WIMCO St. Barth Properties is the leading villa rental operator on St. Barth, with an extensive portfolio of premium villas across the island and a long-running role in shaping the St. Barth luxury travel experience. The partnership integrates the Caribbean Rum Awards programming into one of the most-recognized hospitality operators on the island.

“As we enter 2026, our partnership with the Caribbean Rum Awards continues to be a source of pride and purpose,” said Victoria Johne, general manager of Wimco St Barth Properties. “We look back with gratitude at what we’ve accomplished together, and we look ahead with renewed enthusiasm for another year of celebrating the extraordinary craftsmanship that defines Caribbean rum. This year, we’re committed to deepening our collaboration and expanding the global recognition these remarkable distillers deserve. Thank you for inviting us to be part of this ongoing mission — together, we’re not just promoting a spirit, we’re preserving a legacy and creating unforgettable moments for rum enthusiasts worldwide.”

St. Barth and the Caribbean Rum Awards

St. Barth has become the natural home of the Caribbean Rum Awards.

The eight-square-mile French Caribbean island sits in the heart of the Lesser Antilles, with one of the most-recognized luxury hospitality scenes in the entire region — anchored by a roster of iconic hotels, world-class restaurants and a dining and bar culture that has long made it one of the most-talked-about destinations in the Caribbean.

The combination of St. Barth’s culinary scene, its geographic position at the heart of the rum-producing Lesser Antilles, and its long-running role as a gathering point for the Caribbean’s hospitality and culture community has made it an ideal stage for the rum awards. The annual event has become one of the most-anticipated weeks on the St. Barth calendar.

The Bigger Picture

The 2026 edition of the Caribbean Rum Awards lands at a particularly strong moment for Caribbean rum.

The category has continued to gain meaningful international recognition over the past several years, with Caribbean rums increasingly featured on the world’s leading spirits lists, in award-winning bars and across the global high-end cocktail scene. The Caribbean Rum Awards have been one of the most visible drivers of that growing recognition — and the 2026 edition is positioned to extend that work.

The week is shaped around the same principles that have defined the event since its inception: celebrating the distillers, recognizing the craftsmanship and putting the region’s most extraordinary rums in front of the audiences best positioned to champion them.

The 2026 edition marks the ninth annual Caribbean Rum Awards — putting the event one year out from its decade milestone, and continuing one of the signature gatherings on the broader Caribbean hospitality and culture calendar.

For more, visit the Caribbean Rum Awards.