CaribSeek Kaleidoscope | “From ‘Devil Rum’ to Universal Drink” by Anthony P. Maingot

Particular countries go to great lengths to establish proprietary rights to certain spirits. Americans quite properly lay claim to Bourbon; the Scotch and Irish to Whisky, the French to Champagne and Cognac, the Japanese to Sake, the Russians to Vodka, and “Genever” is quite definitely Dutch. Who, on the other hand, can claim rum? It is the most universally produced and consumed of all the spirits since it is derived from “saccahrum,” i.e. sugar produced from cane, the tall “grass” cultivated in all tropical and semi-tropical areas of the world. Whether you distill it straight from the cane juice, as the French always have, from sugar cane syrup for light flavoring, or from molasses, as everyone else does; whether you bottle it straight from the “continuous” still (raw white rum) or age it in white oak casks until it turns amber, or put caramel in it to make dark “Demerrara” rum, it is all rum.

Despite this universalism, however, there is one country which just might have a unique claim to giving the world “decent” rum: England. Rum, you should know, is part of the sweeping history of empire, an integral part of the magnificent tales of navigation – for warfare and for trade – but alas, also of the sordid history of African slavery, land-grabbing from the Indians of North America and all forms of piracy and brigandage.

That is the mixed legacy of this spirit, a legacy which survives in the widely-held perception that it is the preferred spirit of the working classes of the Tropics but also of the refined and romantically-inclined Don Juan’s of the entire world. Having settled the island of Barbados in the early 16th century and planted its flat, sun-washed land with cane, the English began to refine the residue from the production of sugar (molasses) until they achieved a palatable spirit they properly called “Barbados waters.” As its fame spread in navigation and plantation circles, the liquid became known as “comfortable water. ” This took on special meaning when it was discovered that replacing the poisonous lead pipes and pot stills with copper ones, and adding more water and lime to the mix, had all sorts of medicinal values. Getting rid of scurvy and combating the grippe were certainly two worthy and recommendable reasons for bending the elbow. But nothing so pleasant and appealing could be totally benign. In order to cultivate the sugar cane, the British, and other Europeans (and Muslims for other purposes) resorted to Africa. Rum became the currency of the slave trade and this trade in turn became the backbone of the capitalist development of all great ports, from Hull in Britain to Nantes in France to the ports of New England.

Advertisement

But it was naval warfare and global trade which really gave the English and the Caribbean a head-start in the manufacturing of decent rum. New myths about naval warfare were born when the British Navy decided to do what the pirates were already doing: giving a “grog” or “tot” of rum twice a day to its sailors even as the officers continued to drink port, sherry or brandy. The Navy, not wanting to show preferences, bought its rum in British Guiana, Trinidad and Jamaica, put the blend into oak casks known as “rumbarricoes” and sent it to sea as Naval Rum. Not surprisingly, given the tradition-bound nature of the Brits, it became a firm custom and a successful one indeed. “Splice the Main Brace!” was the call for a double tot of rum. The rum grog took on a heroic reputation when Admiral Nelson defeated Napoleon’s fleet at the crucial battle of Trafalgar.

That victory of the rum-drinking swabbies made it patently clear that rum, not claret or brandy, was the fighting man’s drink . Of course, it was important that the grog be strong enough to “make a rabbit bite a bulldog” as the saying went. By the 18th century, rum had joined the other established spirits as an essential, though not the most select, item in a gentleman’s “wine cellar.” For instance, Thomas Jefferson’s wine cellar’s inventory in 1769 contained the following bottles: 15 of Madeira, 4 of “common” Lisbon wine, 54 of cider, and 83 of rum. Unfortunately there was no indication as to the origin of the rum but one can surmise that it came from one of the many distilleries operating in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. So, in the final analysis it did not matter that Winston Churchill once felt compelled to describe the Royal Navy as a sad trilogy of “rum, sodomy and the lash!”, rum was here to stay. For one, it continued to be a steady comfort to British blue-jackets until 1970 when new shipboard electronics required more brains than brawn. The U.S. Navy which had also adopted the tot, succumbed to the intolerant religious opposition to all alcoholic comforts. American sailors were deprived of their tots in 1914 because, as the Secretary of the Navy put it, “both temperance and democracy demand it.” Interestingly enough, the Indian Army did not abolish it until political Independence and the admission of abstemious Muslims to its ranks.

Page: 1 2 3