The Riveter · Riveting Stories from the Banks of the Clyde

Greenock, Sugar and Caribbean Rum

The history between two places, and why we hold both

September 2026

Titan is a Scottish rum. We are proud of the Clyde, of Greenock, and of the industry that built this place. We also make rum, a spirit born in the Caribbean. Put those two things side by side and there is a history in between that no one in our position should skip over.

This issue is about that history, and why we choose to hold both parts of it.

Greenock, Sugaropolis

For much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Greenock was one of the most important sugar ports in Britain, second only to London by some measures. Raw cane sugar arrived from the Caribbean, was refined in the town's sugar houses, and went out again as the sugar that sweetened Britain's tea. At its height the town had fourteen refineries. The sugar warehouse at James Watt Dock still stands, and so do street names like Sugarhouse Lane.

That trade built fortunes, streets, churches and jobs. It employed thousands of local people, including the women remembered as the Sugar Girls, who did hard, hot, badly paid work in the refineries. It is a real and important part of Inverclyde's working history, and we are proud of the people who did that work.

Where the sugar came from

The sugar that came up the Clyde was grown on Caribbean plantations. For well over a century, those plantations were worked by enslaved Africans, men, women and children taken from their homes, shipped across the Atlantic and forced to work in brutal conditions. Scottish merchants, ship owners and investors, including many connected to the Clyde, profited from that system. Port Glasgow and Greenock were part of it.

Slavery was abolished across most of the British Empire by the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, which came into force in 1834, and the system of so-called apprenticeship that followed did not end until 1838. When it ended, the British government paid compensation to the slave owners. The enslaved people themselves received nothing.

The Greenock sugar trade carried on long after abolition, and later names like Abram Lyle built their refineries in a different era. But the foundations of Sugaropolis were laid on that earlier trade, and it would be dishonest to tell the Golden Syrup story without saying so.

Where rum comes from

Rum was born on the same plantations. In the seventeenth century, sugar makers in the Caribbean found that molasses, the by-product of sugar making, could be fermented and distilled. That spirit became rum, and for a long time it was bound up in the same Atlantic trade.

It is also far more than that history. Over centuries, Caribbean distillers and blenders turned rum into one of the world's great spirits, with styles and traditions that belong to the islands and the people who make it. When we say we started Titan out of a love of Caribbean rum, that is what we mean: a respect for their craft.

Why we hold both

It would be easier to tell only the proud part. The cranes, the ships, the refinery workers, the famous tin of syrup. Plenty of brands do. But our label puts Clydeside industry and a Caribbean spirit in the same bottle, and we think that only earns its place if we are honest about how those two places were first connected.

Holding both means we can be proud of the people of Inverclyde who worked in the yards and the sugar houses, and honest that the wealth of that trade rested on the suffering of enslaved people in the Caribbean. One does not cancel the other. Both are true, and both are part of why Titan exists.

Where to learn more

If you want to go further, Inverclyde has good places to start. The McLean Museum and Watt Library in Greenock hold collections on the town's sugar and trade history, and there has been a public campaign to use the sugar sheds at James Watt Dock for a museum exploring Scotland's links to slavery and empire. For the wider Scottish picture, Glasgow Museums and the University of Glasgow have both published research on the city's historical links to slavery.

Questions people ask

Was Greenock involved in the slave trade?

Greenock's sugar industry depended on cane sugar grown on Caribbean plantations worked by enslaved Africans, and Clyde merchants and ports, including Greenock and Port Glasgow, profited from that Atlantic trade.

Why was Greenock called Sugaropolis?

Greenock earned the name because of the scale of its sugar refining industry. At its peak the town had fourteen working sugar refineries and was one of Britain's leading sugar ports.

What is the connection between sugar and rum?

Rum is distilled from sugar cane products, usually molasses, a by-product of sugar making. It was first produced on Caribbean sugar plantations in the seventeenth century.

Is Titan rum made in the Caribbean or Scotland?

Titan starts with aged Caribbean rum, which is then crafted and blended on the banks of the Clyde with Scottish ingredients including raspberries and Golden Syrup.

Keep reading

Read about Abram Lyle and the Golden Syrup connection, explore our Heritage page, or find out who we are.

Rooted in heritage. Shaped by resilience. Shared with pride.