There have been rumblings of a rum renaissance for a few years now. The mixological moustaches have worked their way through all the Prohibition-era cocktail books and are now revisiting long-lost rum-based tiki drinks. Big Booze has been busy pushing “premiumisation” in rum (that is, attempting to persuade you to shell out top dollar for extremely expensive old rums). And we’re in the midst of a pan-Caribbean drive to delineate all the various categories, as happened with Scotch whisky in the 1960s – so that everyone can finally agree on what constitutes, say, a five-year-old demerara rum or an overproof Jamaican.

The potential is huge. Rum is not so much of an acquired taste as other mixological cults, such as mezcal or Italian amari – there’s nothing not to like about a properly mixed mai tai. Rum geeks would probably win in a fight with whisky or brandy geeks too, I reckon.

But it is only now that all the excitement around rum seems to be building into the sort of momentum that once characterised the craft-gin movement. It centres on a category that, if I’m honest, I’d never really given much thought from a cocktail point of view: spiced rum. When you can buy a Peaky Blinders-themed spiced rum and the manufacturers of Cloven Hoof spiced rum are making their pitch on Dragons’ Den complete with heavy metal band, you know something is up.

“I always judge popularity in two ways,” says Ms Dawn Davies, head buyer for Speciality Drinks, which supplies the best bars in the country with top-shelf hooch. “There are sales, of course, and we have seen a 19 per cent year-on-year increase in sales of flavoured rum. The other way is the amount of product I am offered. The number of new spiced rums I see has quadrupled in the last six months. I am now offered at least one a week. And, interestingly enough, most of them seem to be British.”

But spiced rum? For some of us, it conjures up memories of lukewarm plastic bottles of “festy-juice” – Sailor Jerry and Coke – which my mates and I used to carry around Glastonbury. But on the other end of spectrum, the idea is a good one, and the fruits and spices added push it in a more exotic direction. Think ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, cacao, cardamom, allspice, clove... Or tropical fruit: there are decent banana and coconut rums on the market, and pineapple rum is emerging as its own micro-category – Plantation Pineapple and Bitter Truth’s Tiki Lover Pineapple Rum are almost indecently delicious. It’s a whole new spectrum of flavours if you’re used to gin.

The spiced rum that that might just convert you to the cause is made by Foursquare, the cult Barbados distillery run by Mr Richard Seale, who regularly admonishes mass-produced rum brands for misleading age statements and artificial additives.

“Firstly, it is made with good-quality rum and secondly, the flavouring is natural, unlike 90 per cent of the spiced rums out there,” says Ms Davies. She also recommends the spiced rums made by Chairman’s Reserve and Elements Eight – both distilled in St Lucia, both excellent with just a couple of ice cubes.

The obvious way to mix spiced rum is with a premium soda and a squirt of lime. Ginger beer is excellent; dark rum and tonic is also a brilliant combination. Mint, lime and freshly grated nutmeg are the go-to garnishes. But a rum old fashioned is never a bad idea either.

Rum, I find, lends itself particularly well to cocktail improvisation – making up a cocktail as you go along, having a taste and seeing what else is required. I began to make a Spice Hunter old fashioned but discovered I was fresh out of sugar syrup. No worries! I used orgeat almond syrup and orange liqueur in a nod to the sweeteners used in the original mai tai, then lengthened with half a grapefruit, added a squirt of lime and threw in three or four more kinds of rum until I had a delicious – if unrepeatable – drink. I can’t remember exactly what ended up in there. But it was pretty damn spicy.

Simple and refreshingly spiced! No more needs to be said.

• 50ml spiced rum
• Ginger beer
• Lime wedge, to garnish

Pour a generous double shot of rum into a tall glass filled with ice cubes. Top with ginger beer and garnish with a lime wedge.

The rum old fashioned has been slowly inching up the cocktail charts these past few years. You can be creative with the sweetener too: try grenadine, orange liqueur, orgeat, maraschino or any combination of the above instead of the sugar, if you like. You could also squeeze in the lime to taste, even if this technically makes it more new fangled than old fashioned.

• 50ml (spiced) rum
• 5ml golden sugar syrup (with a 2:1 sugar-to-water ratio)
• A dash of Angostura bitters
• Lime wedge and nutmeg, to garnish

Stir patiently in a tumbler glass filled with ice cubes. Garnish with a lime wedge and a grating of nutmeg.

Once highly obscure – it was invented in a 1970s Malaysian hotel – the jungle bird has become a late-wave bartenders’ favourite, thanks, I’m guessing, to the unusual but approachable combination of rum and Campari. It’s usually made with a good strong dark rum such as Goslings, but I made a spiced rum version with Foursquare and it was sensational.

• 45ml (spiced) rum
• 15ml Campari
• 15ml lime juice
• 15ml golden sugar syrup (with a 2:1 sugar-to-water ratio)
• 60ml pineapple juice
• Pineapple wedge, to garnish

Shake everything with plenty of crushed ice and pour unstrained into an old fashioned glass. Garnish with a pineapple wedge.