The Rum Curious Summit 2025 will be hosted at Altar Society in Downtown Long Beach for its inaugural outing, featuring over 20 rum brands offering 80-plus expressions of the spirit. The four-hour event goes down on Memorial Day, May 26.
So what is The Rum Curious Summit 2025?
The Rum Curious Summit 2025 will host a slew of industry members, rum aficionados, and, of course, the rum-curious. The point? To gather for a slate of curated tastings, symposiums about the underrated spirit, and cocktails that celebrate rum.
Spirit trends have always proved fascinating: The early 2010s saw whiskey—especially bourbon here in the States—take off in a way that heavily diverted from the macro makers and took us into the realm of Things Beyond Jack, making brands like Blanton’s, Angel’s Envy, and the coveted Pappy sneak out of obscurity.
As of the 2020s, it is unquestionably agave spirits, led by tequila and mezcal, that are leading in terms of sales outside of vodka—which has gripped U.S. sales volumes for decades—and pre-made cocktails (think High Noon and White Claw). Behind it? Whiskey. And behind that? Rum.
Will rum finally have its proper moment? That is part of what the Rum Curious Summit 2025 seeks to explore.
For those that might not know: What is Altar Society in Downtown Long Beach?
Altar Society is one of Downtown Long Beach’s largest spaces, melding a brewery, a bar, a pizzeria, a cafe, and a massive event space into one—and with it, is leading a charge that refuses to believe DTLB can’t and shouldn’t be something spectacular.
For Altar Society, opening in Downtown Long Beach has been an extremely lengthy and arduous process—unlike many of the businesses inheriting existing spaces in Downtown Long Beach and reinventing them nearly on the fly: the stellar ISM Brewing, the now-open Broken Spirits Distillery at the former Portuguese Bend Distilling space, and the rightfully successful Sonoratown and Midnight Oil.
Five years in the making and planning, Altar Society is big—like, big. Not just kinda big but massive, sprawling four levels (if you include the basement), and stretching the entirety of its Pine Avenue-facing entryway to Tribune Court (the alleyway which will eventually be connected to the Promenade via a paseo running under the now-in-construction Broadstone Promenade residential building).
They have a cafe in the back. They have a pizzeria. And a full bar. And an event space. The brewery itself, of course… It’s a juggernaut of a space and is contributing to a rebirth in DTLB that is not just desperately needed but clutch in shifting the perception and tourism of the neighborhood.
Altar Society is located at 230 Pine Ave. and will host the Rum Curious Summit 2025 on May 26 from 4PM to 8PM. For tickets, click here.
