Captain Webster’s Añejo Agave Spirit Recreates a Forgotten Rum Runner’s Journey
- Aaron Kendeall
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
By Keir Jackson
Captain Webster’s Añejo Agave Spirit – a 99% agave single barrel release matured in a first fill rye whiskey barrel – has begun its own “Smuggler’s Run” 103 years after its namesake sailed the seas.
Distilled in Jalisco, aged in Washington DC and finished in Pittsburgh, this limited release spent more than two years in wood and draws inspiration from the real life story of a daring rum runner whose legacy nearly disappeared.
This project grew from a close collaboration between Aaron J. Kendeall, founder of Monongahela Imports, and Troy Hughes, co-owner of Reboot Beverages and author of Makers & Shakers: A Hidden History of Black Americans in Booze. While researching Hughes’s latest work, the two uncovered the remarkable story of Captain Clarence Webster, a Black mariner who steered Caribbean vessels during Prohibition and later took part in a historic moment immediately after repeal.
Kendeall first encountered Webster’s name in the archives of the Pittsburgh Courier, once one of the most influential Black newspapers in the United States. What began as curiosity quickly became a committed search.
The two followed scattered articles, maritime reports and surviving notes until a portrait of the captain emerged.
“Once we stumbled onto Webster, we realized his life was bigger than a bootlegging tale,” Kendeall said.
“He was courageous, resourceful, and absolutely unshakable,” Hughes said. “We wanted a spirit worthy of his name.”
As the pair gleaned more details about Webster’s life during subsequent research, their admiration grew.
“Captain Webster was complex, bold and uncompromising – exactly what we want in a great spirit,” Hughes said. “When history forgets people, we lose part of our culture.”
Webster’s documented record supports those claims. On December 30, 1933, he delivered what newspapers described as the first legal shipment of imported spirits into New Orleans after repeal. His ship carried 1,940 cases of whiskey, wine, ‘liquors’ and cordials. Only a few years later, in 1936, he rescued 110 people from drowning after his vessel, the Laura, hit rocks off Utila Island. Local accounts credited him with calm leadership in hurricane ravaged seas.
Honoring captain Webster required the right liquid with an approach grounded in both historical accuracy and correlation.
“Let the liquid lead,” Kendeall said. “That is the foundation. But like Captain Webster, you use every opportunity and you stay creative.”
When asked: ‘What specific qualities in this agave spirit convinced you it could carry the story of Captain Webster and stand up to aging in a first fill rye whiskey barrel?’ Kendeall replied:
“The reason we thought the qualities of our Añejo Agave Spirit would live up to Captain Webster’s legacy is because it required a unique maturation process. It went through five different warehouses and was open-air transported before it reached its final bottling destination – which rum runners would have had multi-stage transport routes.”
Close to three years ago, Reboot Beverages imported a 1,000-Liter tote of 99% agave spirit from a distillery in Jalisco, Mexico, from NOM XXXX. The spirit traveled to Washington DC, where 53 gallons were placed into a first fill Mt. Pleasant Rye Whiskey barrel.
After about one year of aging, the team connected this maturing agave with the newly rediscovered life of Webster, and the Smuggler’s Run concept took shape. The imagined path mirrors the improvisational methods of early twentieth-century bootleggers. During Prohibition, American smugglers often shifted between Canada, the Caribbean and Mexico depending on risk and reward.
Records are scarce for obvious reasons.
“Bootleggers operated by wit and opportunity,” Hughes said. “The same crew might run Canadian whisky over the Lakes one month and tequila from Mexico the next. There is no surviving manifest, only legend. So we took respectful liberties.”
Captain Webster’s Añejo is a small batch release made from 99% Blue Weber agave and matured in a first-fill rye whiskey barrel. Its character is intended to mirror the captain himself with a profile that is bold, layered and aged.
“Just as Webster blended Caribbean grit with American opportunity, this spirit marries Jalisco agave with Pennsylvania rye,” Kendeall said. “That combination of a high quality spirit for an incredible price is uncompromising and unforgettable.”
Just like captain Webster.
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