-By Kenneth Hein

Moving from toothpaste to the top-selling rum, Seamus McBride will take over as CEO of Bacardi Limited, effective Sept. 1.

With a strong background in marketing overseeing Colgate toothpaste and other brands, McBride has spent 25 years at Colgate-Palmolive. He also spent four years as the marketing director for Bass beer. He assumed his most recent post at Colgate as evp and president, North America and worldwide commercial effectiveness, last August.

McBride succeeds Andreas Gembler, who had the Bacardi position since 2005. The move comes after the company pulled in $5.5 billion in sales last year, which was the highest total in Bacardi’s history.

Despite, the sales record, Bacardi rum was dethroned as the top-selling liquor in the U.S. last year by Smirnoff, per Impact, New York. Sales were off 1% globally, per the company.

Bacardi owns Grey Goose vodka, which cracked the U.S. top 10 for the first time in 2008 and grew 18% globally. Earlier this year, Bacardi also re-upped its deal to distribute Disaronno Originale amaretto liqueur for an undisclosed sum of money.

Bacardi is an active marketing player. The company spent $29.3 million in U.S. media (excluding online) for its eponymous rum, with another $20 million touting Grey Goose as “The World’s Best Tasting Vodka,” per Nielsen Monitor-Plus. Overall, the company spent $74 million on ads in the U.S. in 2007.

“Seamus is an outstanding business leader with broad global expertise in consumer products including marketing, commercial operations and systems,” said chairman Facundo Bacardi in a statement. “He is ideally suited to build upon our record results and our premium strategy.”

In addition to leading Colgate’s operations in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, McBride also directed global efforts to grow sales at retail accounts. Gembler will retire after McBride steps in.