Gosling’s rum brand director Andrew Holmes was a surprise guest on the first day of the Bermuda Captive Conference.

“Gosling’s Black Seal Rum is the No 1-selling spirit in Bermuda,” Mr Holmes said in a packed session called Expect the Unexpected. “It is also the No 1 export from the island, which actually says nothing for it at all. It’s the only thing we export in Bermuda. We make rum and babies. Everything else comes in 24ft containers from New Jersey.”

Mr Holmes captivated a packed room at the Hamilton Princess & Beach Club with a lively exploration of Bermuda’s most famous beverage.

Tracing the brand’s origins to 1806, Mr Holmes recounted how James Gosling’s Atlantic crossing from England to America, turned into what he jokingly called the world’s first booze cruise.

The chartered ship the Mercury never reached its intended destination and instead landed in Bermuda after 91 days at sea. From that accident of history grew a business that would eventually define the island’s rum culture.

Early customers brought their own bottles to be filled from barrels of rum in St George's. When the merchants began reusing champagne bottles sealed with black wax, locals started asking for “the rum with the black seal”, a nickname that eventually became the brand’s identity.

It wasn’t until the Forties that Francis “Goose” Gosling created the logo of a black seal juggling a wooden barrel, a play on the Black Seal name.

During Mr Holmes’s presentation, two people volunteered to make rum swizzles while blindfolded.

“The winner should be whoever makes it first without making a complete mess,” Mr Holmes joked.

Jessye Vaucrosson and Elizabeth Scott approached the challenge as though they had been making drinks in the dark their whole lives.

In the end, neither competitor was declared a winner.

The event was followed by a cocktail reception.