mark
From The Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails
or marque is used today to denote a specific formula of unblended rum, chiefly in Jamaica. It is a relic of the old global spirits-trade system whereby each spirits producer had its own code—using letters, symbols, or both—that would be branded into its barrel heads. Some of the Jamaican marks are easily decoded, such as the WB mark denoting the Wedderburn family’s Blackheath estate, while others, such as the IWO that represented their Blue Castle estate, are more obscure. After the consolidation of the industry in the twentieth century, many Jamaican distilleries continued making rum in the style of other distilleries that were absorbed, retaining the old marks for identification. See rum, Jamaica.
Pietrek, Matt. “Jamaican Rum Marques Roundup.” Cocktail Wonk. https://cocktailwonk.com/rum-marques (accessed February 19, 2021).
By: David Wondrich
This definition is from The Oxford Companion to Spirits & Cocktails, edited by David Wondrich (Editor-in-Chief) and Noah Rothbaum (Associate Editor).