Rich in both spirit and swagger, The Rolling Stones washed up on the shores of Jamaica in the 1970s, tapping into a decades-long creative wellspring that courses through the island and carries onward in the legendary band’s latest Crossfire Hurricane Rum reboot.
After being denied U.S. visas in 1972, the British rockers charted a course for Jamaica to begin recording Goat’s Head Soup, with the band’s famously hard-living guitarist Keith Richards staying into early 1973 and later buying a house in the hills above Ocho Rios.
On and off for the next five decades, the Stones retraced their steps to Jamaica, whether through Richards’ production work with the reggae band Wingless Angels or early 2000s tour dates featuring Toots and the Maytals. The impact of the years, Richards noted, was impossibly memorable and lends gravitas to the band’s newest rum, which takes its moniker from the opening line of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”
“When we arrived in Jamaica, with Jimmy Cliff and Bob Marley, it was like being in England with The Beatles and us, like, 10 years before,” Richards said in a statement shared with Maxim. “There’s something in the air. You don’t know quite what it is, but you know, and you feel it from everybody on the street and in the stores… It was fantastic to see the (Jamaican) people, like, feel a sense of identity and joy and a happiness about having something of their own.”
The legacy lives on: Hot on the heels of raucous new album Foreign Tongues, the Stones just launched a retooled take on Crossfire Hurricane Rum. Previously introduced in late 2023 alongside Hackney Diamonds, Crossfire Hurricane Rum takes on new life with two new releases, each bottled at a smooth 40 percent ABV. To get the new duo just right, the expressions were crafted under the watchful eye of one of the world’s foremost rum experts, Ian Burrell.
“Jamaica has been part of our story for many years. It was a place that stayed with us, especially the music we have created down the decades,” Mick Jagger said in a statement about the new spirit. “The inspiration of reggae from Jamaica and all its wonderful musicians and singers has never left us. A Jamaican rum felt like a natural way to celebrate that part of our history.’’
Thirty-plus years after working with Richards in Ocho Rios, the Wingless Angels and others toasted that legacy, helped along by plenty of Crossfire Hurricane Rum during a post-dinner jam session at Miss T’s Kitchen earlier this summer. “God bless Keith for always taking an interest in us,” the Wingless Angels’ Bryan Jobson said of working with the iconic guitarist and producer. “For the biggest band in the world to come to Jamaica, what the Stones have done for Jamaica is immeasurable,” he told a group of journalists on a humid Jamaica evening in Ochos Rios.
That same level of passion worked its way into producing a rum featuring liquid sourced from four distinct Jamaican estates (Worthy Park, Clarendon, Hampden and Long Pond), the result of experimentation and collaboration with Burrell.
Not unlike tinkering with a guitar part in the studio, both the sipping-forward Crossfire Hurricane Reserve and the mixology-approved Crossfire Hurricane Gold draw on each estate’s distinct characteristics. Those include the homegrown sugarcane and molasses of Worthy Park, the decidedly funky notes of Hampden Estate and the longer fermentation times of distillate sourced from Long Pond in Trelawny.
The use of both pot and column distillate also manages to bridge the gap between the distinctive production methods of each estate on the relatively small island, Burrell, the rum ambassador noted. Consider it a Jamaican rum jam session of sorts. “There’s no way to pigeonhole a Jamaican rum,” Burrell said during a guided tasting spotlighting rums from the quartet of estates at the historic Jamaica Inn. “You could go to one part of Jamaica and have one type of temperature and conditions, and then another part, and it’s completely different.”
Each rum also pleasantly holds its own when sipped neat, with delicate smoothness and floral notes elevating Crossfire Gold in particular. Perhaps most intriguing are cocktail creations inspired by the Stones themselves, like the Tequila Sunrise-inspired Jamaican Sunrise. The recipe, while delicious, is perhaps a touch less strong than the legendarily hard-partying Richards might have favored. Both Crossfire Hurricane Rum expressions are available online now for $44.99.