Dr Rum invites Johnny Depp to share a drink together

THE Whitsundays’ very own Dr Rum is throwing down the gauntlet to Johnny Depp – to share a “potion” together at the Rum Bar in Airlie Beach.

The idea for the challenge came from Rum Bar and Fish D’Vine creative consultant Jo Sweeney after learning through last week’s Whitsunday Times that Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales would be filming in the Whitsundays this week.

“I just saw the front page of the paper last week and thought, ‘Hang on a minute, pirates love rum and we’ve got the rum bar and Dr Rum,'” she said.

Ms Sweeney started talking to her connections in the film industry and has also approached Tourism and Events Queensland and Whitsundays Marketing and Development Limited for help in getting the world’s best-loved pirate off the film set and into the Rum Bar at Airlie Beach.

“TEQ and WMDL are getting on board with an online assault on social media to basically call out to Jack Sparrow to experience Airlie Beach,” she said.

National rum ambassador Mark Wyatt, better known by his alias of Dr Rum, said he would be honoured to share a nip with the famous pirate captain of the Black Pearl.

“Captain Jack Sparrow famously says, ‘But why is the rum gone?’ So it only seems logical for him to find it in Australia’s largest rum collection right here in Airlie Beach,” he said.

Dr Rum said if given the chance for a drink with Depp, he would recommend “some of our fantastic rum that’s drunk neat but also some of the 17th and 18th century recipes reputedly drunk by pirates and navy alike”.

The fifth instalment of the Disney epic Pirates of the Caribbean is filming in locations around the Whitsunday islands in the coming weekend and into next week.

Notices to mariners of exclusion zones for areas off Whitehaven Beach have been issued by the regional harbour master and heavy penalties for contravening them can apply.