Rum Club Celebrates 15 Years in Portland

Last week I got an email from Michael Shea, co-owner (with his wife, Wendi) about the fact that Rum Club is turning 15 years old this month. With all the recent talk of “barmageddon” and witnessing so many places closing, it’s impressive to see Rum Club have staying power. We chatted on the phone about the bar, it’s vibe, their thoughtful cocktail program, the lingering effects of COVID, and the waning interest in standing at bars, among other things. Here’s part of our conversation.

Rum Club: The Basics

Michael sent out a press release last week and his summary of what Rum Club is was straightforward and simple, so I’m including it here:

“Founded in 2011 by Michael Shea and Kevin Ludwig, Rum Club was originally conceived as a “waiting room” bar for guests of the then-wildly popular Beaker and Flask. At the time, Portland’s craft cocktail scene was still largely centered in restaurant bars and landmark establishments such as Teardrop Lounge. Rum Club set out to fill a different niche: a welcoming late-night bar where guests could enjoy a well-made cocktail, a shot and a beer, tiki drinks, or a deep dive into rum.”

After Beaker and Flask closed, Michael purchased Ludwig’s share of Rum Club, and he Wendi run the joint. They are in a triangle-shaped building on a triangular property nestled in to where SE Sandy, 7th Avenue, and Washington Street meet.

Notable Rum Club Alumni

The press release indicated Rum Club helped launch the next chapters of many talented
bartenders. Notable alumni include:

• Adam Robinson—Deadshot, Too Soon.
• Emily Mistell—Hey Love, The End.
• Devon and Tyler Treadwell—Tulip Shop Tavern.
• Nicholas Cifuni—Yardy Rum Bar.
• Dylan McAffrey-Allen—Bruno’s.

Rum Club: What’s in a Name?

I was curious to understand why they chose to name the bar Rum Club. Like why not Gin Club or Bourbon Club? What was it about rum that captured them enough to name their business after that particular spirit? 

“It started as a working title and it just stuck, so we just kind of went with it,” Michael remarked. And then he added, “I will also say that rum is quite possibly the most flexible spirit when it comes to making cocktails, over any other.”

Michael says that rum had no cachet at all when they opened in 2011, even with the media claim that rum was the “next new spirit.” “It was basically something where you might have a rum drink—like a frozen daiquiri in Las Vegas or New Orleans—that was mostly sugar and not much else.”

At that point, Michael was a whiskey drinker, and had been for a long time. Kevin Ludwig, his then business partner when he worked at Beaker and Flask, brought Michael around to it. “It kind of blew my mind,” he said.

The Flexibility of Rum

So why is rum such a flexible spirit, as Michael asserts? “The breath and width of it—it’s made anywhere in the world that sugarcane is grown,” he explained. “I’d say gin’s perhaps a close second.” Rum is grown in the Caribbean, of course, but it also grown in places as far south as South Africa and Australia, as well as Japan and Mexico.

“You know, people love bourbon, whiskey—it’s only adaptable in so many ways. But you have the breadth from light rums to aged light rums to agricoles, to aged rums, etc.”

Rum makes tiki drinks great, makes cocktails great, and it is essential for daiquiris, “one of the best classic cocktails of all time,” Michael added.

And not only does rum make tiki drinks great, rum is the basis of all tiki drinks. “I don’t know if [bartender] Joaquin Simo said it first or someone else did, but when you get into tiki, you’re blending different rums from different areas.” It was Donn the Beachcomber who said, “What one rum can’t do, three rums can.” Michael added, “This is actually quite particular to that spirit category, which is a really cool thing about it, as well.”

Speaking of tiki, Rum Club is hosting a happy hour at the end of the month with a book tour associated with The Donn of Tiki film, “A a guy wrote a book that’s associated with that movie,” said Michael. We had a chance to screen it last year.

NA Drinking

We had a side conversation about NA drinking. He had great things to say about Pathfinder NA spirit (“Pathfinder is amazing.”)—he likes that it is trying to be its own thing, not replacing or mimicking existing spirits. He is not a big fan of things trying to be, say, an NA version of tequila—or rum.

Other things that make a dry cocktail great are the quality of the fresh juices and syrups. At Rum Club they make their own. “We can make really, really great non-alcoholic cocktails as a result by utilizing cinnamon syrup, we make our own hibiscus syrup, which has an analogy to a Jamaican sorrel punch.” Sorrel drink is one of my favorite things and I encourage you to enjoy it when you have a chance.

He also likes the flavor effect of Ghia, a line non-alcoholic apéritifs and spritzes. “It’s almost like the bitter orange San Pellegrino that I’ve had in the past,” he remarked. That would be the Chinotto flavor. And he likes the Roots Divino, an NA vermouth. (“They totally work great in cocktails.”)

On the NA beer side, we both agree there’s a lot of good stuff out there. I especially like the hoppy beers, which give depth and weight to the drink. Michael says he has customers that mix and match—have a couple of regular beers, then an NA beer before they leave.

And while it is clear that alcohol-based cocktails are the name of the game at Rum Club, creating NA cocktails is also satisfying in its own way. Plus it allows for a feeling of inclusion, socially for those who choose not to drink. “We take our NA program very seriously, so we’ve got a whole page devoted to it,” said Michael.

The Space and Vibe at Rum Club

Michael describes Rum Club as “the tiniest little bar.” The bar itself is shaped like a horseshoe, and just by the nature of this configuration, “everyone ends up talking with each other,” he said. And the vibe changes depending on who is there in that 800 square foot space.

“It does encourage interaction with guests that don’t know each other,” he continued. “There’s 12 or 14 seats at the bar top. And then there’s only 30 seats at the tables.” Rum Club’s ceiling height is about 12 feet, as opposed to those more modern or recently renovated spots around town with high ceilings.

“It feels like you’re in a nice, cozy cave of a space,” he explained. “Summer typically tends to be our busier time of year just because of the rum and its association with the [summer] weather. But I will say that the winter is my favorite time there because it’s like this cozy little cave of a womb of a room.”

He continued, “There’s low ceilings and there’s pretty wallpaper that I hand selected. The ceiling, which looks like it’s knotty pine, is exactly the way my basement looks in my old house—I hand-shellacked it. It’s this cozy, warm, welcoming space.”

Patio

Along with the cozy inside, there’s a patio outside, which becomes very popular in the summer, especially. “It’s always been a popular place for service industry folks starting from day one,” he explained. “People get off of work and come in to see us, and they can go smoke on the patio like most service industry people still do.”

There are about 20 seats out on the patio, which is partially covered, located at the corner of Sandy and 8th.

Popular Drinks at Rum Club

I asked Michael what was really hot on the menu. “There are two drinks that have been on the menu for 15 years,” he said. “They never come off the menu. First is the Rum Club Daiquiri.”

Rum Club Daiquiri

This was from Kevin Ludwig (his original business partner). It is a daiquiri made with Añejo Spanish-style rum—a lightly aged rum from Puerto Rico—with lime and demerara sugar. He also adds a couple of dashes of Angostura bitters, which is apparently a variation from the cocktail’s urtext.

“We use a little bit of maraschino in that cocktail, and then a few drops of absinthe, which is an old Donn the Beachcomber trick that he used in a lot of his recipes,” explained Michael. “He would use five to six drops in his cocktails because that anise flavor gives this interesting, kind of tropical bent to drinks, which is really lovely.”

Michael aims to keep the price of this drink, and many of the others, reasonable. It’s $12 in 2006, starting at $8 in 2011.

Pedro Martinez

This is a riff on a Martinez, “which is originally a Old Tom gin cocktail, a predecessor to the martini,” explained Michael. “For lack of a better description, it’s a rum Manhattan, so we’re going to have bitters, a little bit of maraschino, a Torino vermouth, a then we use a rich rum blend on that, and then a lot of lemon oil, and that goes on a big cube.

“So the name comes out of a joke for people that are baseball fans. My friend Kevin and I went to high school together—he’s a Yankees fan; Pedro Martinez played for the Red Sox. So I said, ‘We’re going to put a drink called the Pedro on the menu!’ because it was just a good natured thing.”

And Then There’s the Peach Blendy: a Blended Daiquiri

This is a seasonal drink that Michael says, “people lose their minds over it.” He explained: “Apropos of this time of year, because I just did our first drop, and coming out of my farm-to-table background. I utilize the farmer’s market, so peaches are in season right now.”

He continued, “I either get Baird’s or Maryhill peaches, I macerate them, we infuse our own spiced rum, and we make fresh peach blended daiquiris. It’s possibly the best thing in the world.” They also do a version with strawberries during strawberry season.  

Lingering Effects of the Pandemic

I was curious to learn if and how they’ve continued to be affected by the effects of the COVID pandemic over the years. “We definitely have been affected by the the ‘following out of downtown’—the people aren’t in downtown any longer,” he explained. “That’s actually been a big hit to our business. We no longer have happy hour on Fridays—happy hour runs Sunday through Thursday. It used to be on Fridays there wouldn’t be an empty seat in the house at 5.30.”

He continued, “That business is gone.” He says it used to be that a lot of people that worked downtown thought “OK, I’m going to drive out, I’m going to stop and get a couple of cocktails, and wait traffic out.” That’s not as common as it used to be.

He does acknowledge that some business owners might be starting to see a comeback after the loss of tourism and bad press Portland endured for about five years. But the climb back to previous baseline is slow, in his estimation. But he would love to see things continue on an upward trajectory than anything else, like most of us do in Portland.

Standing at at Bar, Where Did it Go?

Michael also made the observation that after the pandemic, people are less inclined to stand in bars—or at least, at their bar. “It used to be that the bar would fill up and people would stand and mill about. That’s kind of gone.”

He wonders if people just want to have their cozy little spot there in the bar. I could see that. “It’s a very curious shift,” Michael remarked. “I’ve seen that a lot because I’m often the person that’s running the door these days. 

Thoughts on Service

One thing they do at Rum Club is offer table service. “I feel very strongly about this,” he said. “We don’t on the patio just because of logistics and because of the way we’re staffed. However, we do here in the bar.”

He continued, “I know this has been a switch in the business model for a lot of people just to offer bar only service. But honestly, for me—I’m sitting down, I’m getting some food and a cocktail. I don’t want to get up and get back into the queue to get another drink. So I think it’s really important from a service standpoint to still offer that.”

He added, “I think it’s just good business. And I think it’s nice for like someone to come back and be like, ‘Hi, would you like another this or that or the other?'”

And hiring staff that is on board with and enthusiastic about that detail is important to him. “I’ve got a small staff,” he explained. “I bartend still, and I’ve got five or six other front of house staff, and that’s it. We’re a small house.”

About the Food

Michael says that they sell a lot more food now than they did before the pandemic. Not a ton, but it’s a noticeable change. He says in the past they had an ok food program but it’s ramped up over time. And it all happens in a tiny kitchen with a glass top stove, helmed by Jesse Eastman, who has been there since 2018.

“The food that Jesse’s been doing is really incredible,” he remarked. “Everyone who comes in and eats it is like, ‘Holy crap, I can’t believe you guys are putting this food out!'”

They offer a bunch of snacky things, including pickled deviled eggs. And Jesse runs food specials, too.

“We can’t do raw preparations, but the amount of crudos and ceviches and aguachilles that he does throughout the year are incredible,” said Michael. “The guy’s a food nerd. I’m blessed to have him.” As for what’s on the menu, Michael highlighted the Boka Dushi, in particular.

It’s a West Indian curry with rice and vegetables, and he makes it with tofu that they get right next door from their friends at Ota. “He gets really good fried tofu. It is so delicious. It’s been on the menu for a couple of years now and people are kind of blown away by it.” Along with the tofu it has green beans, kimchi carrots, crispy shallot, and comes with steamed rice.

Anniversary Celebrating

They have some special offers this week. From today, Monday, July 13 through Thursday, July 16 happy hour will see Rum Club Daiquiris priced at $8, and the Pedro Martinez at $10.

The bar’s actual birthday party will be on Sunday, June 19 from 2pm to 10pm. The first three hours will be ticketed and limited-entry. Funds from the ticket sales will benefit the Oregon Humane Society. Details:

• 2pm tickets are $30 (plus $3.85 fee), available on Eventbrite.
• 3:30pm tickets are $20 (plus $3.18 fee), available on Eventbrite.
• They’re running a special 2011-priced menu for the event.
• Alejandro De La Para (@nightfangpdx) will be making free tacos until they run out.

I hope you’ll have a chance to stop by Rum Club and wish them well on their 15 years in the business, making it through the COVID pandemic, and persevering through rough economic times. It’s impressive. Wishing Michael, Wendi, and the Rum Club team all the best!

Rum Club
Celebrating 15 years in 2026
720 SE Sandy Blvd, Portland
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