RON JEREMY IS A PORN STAR. But you knew that already, didn’t you? No? Well, the moustachioed face looking back at you is the acceptable end of the biggest star in the porn game over the past 35 years. Or, to borrow his own charming description: “The hardest (working) man in porn”. 

You might wonder how Drinks International fits in with all this; you may equally wonder how this man ever got a job that requires no clothes. Well, all will be revealed. But for those without a gapingly open mind, safety is just a closed web page away. For the rest, this is the story of how one drinks journalist met Ron Jeremy.

“Hi Ron, how are you?” “Nine and three-quarter inches,” he replies, throwing his hand out as quickly as he lowered the tone. To be expected, you might say. After all, the Panama-produced, Finnish-owned, porn star-endorsed rum brand Ron de Jeremy is billed as The Adult Rum. Irreverence is part of the package.

“My friend tells me there’s a Playboy party tonight,” continues Jeremy. “We need to get some media over there. What celebrities are here? Is Pamela Anderson in town?” These are not questions directed at me but at brand co-founder Olli Hietalahti and UK distributor Justin Berkmann of Spirit Cartel. Still, the thought of Playboy Club’s immaculately mannered Salvatore Calabrese conversing with Ron Jeremy has me sufficiently occupied.

Sitting next to me, Jeremy is wearing a T-shirt displaying a Che Guevara-inspired silhouetted image of his own head. At the business end of his portly frame, he is sporting tracksuit bottoms with a Ron Jeremy-the-video-game-character motif, and on his left hand a Ron Jeremy ring. “There’s only one thing worse than having my face on my shirt and that’s having my face on a ring,” declares Jeremy when his sartorial selection is broached. “Now that I come to think of it, nothing I’m wearing is my own... I don’t pay for a damn thing.” 

The conversation is steered in the direction of rum. How did it come about? “Two idiots from Finland, sorry, Olli and Jouko [Laune Jouko, the third business partner] approached me. They told me they needed a Ron to represent their rum, because Ron is rum in Spanish. But Ronald Reagan died; Ronald McDonald is making hamburgers and Ronald Howard is making movies,” jokes Jeremy. “So basically there was no-one left except me, so I said OK, and we had a deal and I licensed my name. In the past 35 years I have had rolling papers, T-shirts, beef jerky, hot sauce, skateboards, cigars, watches, all with my name on, but I’ve never been involved in alcohol in my life.” 

Jeremy may have the look and reputation of a party man, but alcohol is not one of his vices. “I’m probably the straightest guy in Hollywood. I love rum but I’m not a very good drinker. I look at a rum, think ‘that looks nice’, and fall asleep. But if I’m wide awake and have had plenty of sleep I love having a bit of alcohol, getting tipsy and having fun.”

Mini-tour

Jeremy’s visit is part of a mini-tour of Europe to promote the brand, but when talk moves to the production of his eponymous spirit, Hietalahti fills me in. The rum comes in two forms, the seven-year old Ron de Jeremy and Ron de Jeremy Spiced – the latter having only just reached Europe but now makes up the majority of sales in the US. 

But Jeremy is not without a few words of wisdom on the subject: “They say vodka outsells rum but rum is very popular on islands, where it’s tropical. With the old pirates out there with the old Yo ho ho. You don’t hear them say ‘Yo ho ho and a bottle of Jagermeister!’ It doesn’t sound right – it’s ‘Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!’”

Jeremy is tired, following a late night and an early flight from Oslo. “There was a nice PR girl in Oslo and I signed her booby,” he informs. “She was so conservative looking and straight-laced. But I can whip this [marker] out of my pocket quicker than a penis. Look how fast I am [demonstration ensues]! I use it to sign items, or sign boobies. Or in some cases guys want it done – I’ve got to be fair. But the women are from all walks of life – you can always put an initial right on a booby.”

Before Norway the tour visited the Netherlands. “I love Amsterdam because of their free attitudes. And the bikes that are everywhere you look. It’s a good workout and protects the environment at the same time. But too many cities have hills. Can you imagine in San Francisco having bikes? Oh my god.”

After London, Jeremy’s schedule reads Florida, Boston, LA, South Carolina, Berlin then Miami. But rum promotion is just one of his commitments. He debates in colleges and still takes on roles in pornos “about every month-and-a-half”. “If you look at my calendar, I swear to god, it’s crazy. I’ll be dead by next Thursday!” Judging by his drooping head and increasingly heavy eyelids, Thursday is looking ambitious. His concentration seems to be rapidly waning so I switch the conversation back to porn – specifically his breakthrough in 1978. 

“My girlfriend posted a picture of me to Playgirl,” recalls Jeremy. “They liked it and wanted to do a layout, so I posed for a thing called Guy Next Door. The caption said: ‘Ron likes sailing and hang-gliding, when he gets a chance.’” 

Back then, Ron went by his surname, Hyatt, not his middle name, Jeremy. A rookie’s mistake, he admits. “Guys looked me up [in the phonebook] under R Hyatt from Queens, New York, and got my grandmother Rose Hyatt, who was living downstairs. She was getting phone calls round the clock from gay guys saying: ‘Ooh, is Ron home? It would be nice if we could meet up a little later.’ She had to move out for, like, a month and half.” Ron Hyatt became Ron Jeremy pretty swiftly after that.

The porn work was never meant to be permanent – the goal for Jeremy was always to move into acting with clothes on. “It served a purpose, the job market was ridiculous at the time. The competition… How is a guy meant to know if you’re a good actor if you can’t get within a mile of him. Porn helped me take it to a higher plateau as an actor. I’ve been in cult films such as Detroit Rock City, Boondock Saints and Orgazmo, which were massive hits in colleges.” But the main body of Jeremy’s work is from the ‘blue’ back-catalogue, of which there are more than 2,000 films, the names of which cannot be mentioned here. Except perhaps 3T The Extra Testicle, a title that is just downright amusing. 

Despite the favourable topic of conversation, by now Jeremy is dropping in and out of sleep – a curious predicament that even the most dexterous of journalists would find challenging. To keep going in the hope the interviewee may be roused, or to terminate the interview immediately? I attempt the former, asking him about his knowledge of the late champion horse named Ron Jeremy, then firing him a risqué question about private (or should it be privates?) insurance. Before long his words are falling away and he is fast asleep.

Product lowdown

Hietalahti steps in to give me a rundown on the rum. The seven-year-old is aged in bourbon barrels and made by Francisco ‘Don Pancho’ Fernandez at Alcoholes y Rones de Panama. Don Pancho is a 73-year-old Cuban-born master blender who over his career has had a hand in rums such as Havana Club, Abuelo, Zafra 21, and Panamonte XXV Preciosa. What’s more, the distillery owns its own sugarcane fields, so it has control over the quality of its molasses. 

The brand currently sells around 70,000 bottles a year in some 15 markets, and Hietalahti’s company, One Eyed Spirits, is looking for backers to expand the brand’s distribution further. In fact, through crowd investing, anyone willing to invest €1,000 can buy a share in the brand line. The licensing deal with Jeremy covers all spirits, so Hietalahti has plans for other Ron Jeremy-themed line extensions. Surely a brandy named Jeremy de Jerez is a frontrunner. 

As I make preparations to leave I thank Hietalahti and turn to Jeremy who by now has his head hung back and is gently snoring. Maybe a share in Ron de Jeremy isn’t such a bad idea, I ponder, looking down at the 59-year-old porn star – quite literally Hietalahti’s sleeping partner.