Fancy a tale of betrayal, moral (and financial?) bankruptcy, rum, pirates, and bad design? Well, boy, do I have a story for you. A few years ago, whilst I was still at Primate, we were approached to help launch a new brand of rum. It was called Rumburra, a not-fantastic-but-also-not-terrible play on the words “rum” and “Edinburgh”, which is pronounced Edinburra. You get it.

The rum had no connection to Edinburgh, except that the founders were from there. Well, Stirling, if you want to be precise, but I guess Rumling doesn’t have the same ring to it, and no one knows where Stirling is anyway, right? It’s still Scotland. Except, Rumburra had no connection to Scotland either, other than the fact it would be bottled here, or “infused with Scottish water”, as we came to describe it. Not proud of that one.

Anyway, we took the job, not because it paid well, but because one of the founders (who is no longer involved) was a nice client of ours and designing a rum label sounded like fun. Because they had no funding to speak of, we were promised shares instead of cash as compensation for our work. I can’t remember the number of shares, but it was not insignificant. (Then again, a significant percentage of nothing is not exactly significant either.)

We did the job. A quick logo, a bottle label, and a tiny website. We didn’t put a great deal of work into it (after all we weren’t really being paid), but it turned out alright. After receiving a token bottle from the first batch — I don’t recall if we tasted it or not — things went quiet. Rumburra wasn’t the hit the founders hoped it would be, whole thing fizzled out, and we moved on.

Fast forward until today (well, a few weeks ago, at the time of publishing this post). At a farmers market in Dundee, I spot a familiar sounding stall. Rumburra! I say familiar sounding because it certainly didn’t look anything like the Rumburra I once helped create. But Rumburra it was. I reached out to old friends at Primate immediately. Did they know about this? Why was our old branding gone? What happened to our shares?

Turns out, Rumburra had got in touch a couple of years ago to pay for the work we did (presumably to absolve themselves having to give up any shares). But the payment never came. Instead, Primate was ghosted, the old Rumburra company was liquidated, and Rumburra rose again as a new business with no pesky debt to a local design agency. This is the betrayal and moral bankruptcy bit, in case you wondered.

Now for the pirates and bad design. Remember how I said Rumburra (the beverage, not the company) has literally no ties to Edinburgh (or Scotland, for that matter)? Well, the new website begs to differ! Apparently, Rumburra was discovered by non other than William Kidd, famous Scottish buccaneer! Not only that, his secret recipe for this amazing rum was thrown to the sea in a bottle and somehow found its way to the shores of “Burra”. Wow! Here I was thinking Rumburra was nothing more than a blended rum mixed with Scottish water. Funny that they never mentioned this incredible tale of origin in our original brief. Certainly would have made the job easier.

The late Milton Glaser once wrote a list of “12 steps on the Graphic Designer’s road to hell”. Number two on that list is “Designing a crest for a new vineyard to suggest that it has been in business for a long time.” I have never come across a more comparable violation of this credo than Rumburra’s new (old) brand. Then again, perhaps I shouldn’t expect more of someone who would rather burn their own business than to pay what they owe.

So there you have it. We were taken for a ride (short and inexpensive, thankfully) and left stranded whilst Rumburra once again set sails for the promised land. I hope—and think—they never reach it.