Rum

We can thank Christopher Columbus for the existence of rum.

The center of modern rum production is in and around the Caribbean Islands, due in most part because this is also one of the major centers of sugar cane production. Sugar cane was brought to this region by Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the America’s. At the time, it was just one of the plants he had brought with him to see if it could be produced over here. Not only could it grow, but it could flourish as well. Soon, the islands were planting, and growing lots of sugar cane, and from this producing sugar, which would be shipped back to the sweet-tooth’s of Europe.

A by-product of sugar production is molasses. And while molasses does have culinary purposes, it is not used anywhere near as much as sugar, which meant that the sugar production facilities needed to find ways to dispose of large amounts of unwanted molasses. Sometime around the middle of the 1600’s, somebody struck upon the great idea of trying see what would result from fermenting the molasses and then distilling it. What they ended up with, while crude and rough enough to get the nickname “kill-devil”, was still able to quench the alcoholic needs of the incoming ships. Soon, it became a secondary product from the islands and was in high demand by the sailors, as well as to the colonial settlers in the new world. Soon, molasses would be shipped up to the New England states, where rum production was a big deal.

Rum of these days however was dark, and crude, nowhere near the quality of the various European spirits. It wouldn’t be until the middle of the 1800’s, two hundred years after the origins of rum, that Don Facundo Bacardi would devise a process that combined filtering and aging techniques, along with improved distillation methods, to produce rums that were refined, smooth, and light in both color as well as body. Since then, rum has become a highly respectable spirit, and no longer fit only for sailors and backwoodsmen.

In America, rum production using imported molasses gave way to whiskey, which could easily be made from locally produced grain. This turned whiskey into the standard spirit of the newly forming country. But less than two hundred years later, this would change when Americans were saddled with Prohibition. While American Whiskey could no longer be produced, rum was still in plentiful supply from Cuba and the Caribbean Islands. Once Prohibition was over, orders turned back to American Whiskey, but since this was in short supply, many distributers would require bars to order an entire case of rum for every bottle of whiskey. This resulted in large amounts of rum that bars needed to figure out how to use. This is reported how Pat O’Brien ended up developing the Hurricane in New Orleans, and it is also suspected to be part of the reason for the strong emphasis of rum cocktails in the various Tiki bars which were coming onto the scene.

Rum, and rum cocktails, are indeed a valuable addition to the bartender’s craft. If you don’t quite feel like you know this spirit properly, I highly recommend picking up a bottle and giving it a try. There are a wide variety of rums to select from, each of them with often specific flavor characteristics. Bacardi is a nice standard brand, with a fairly subdued flavor, Mount Gay is a good inexpensive choice, with Appleton, Wray & Nephew, and Sea Wynde being just a few of the other many worthwhile rums to check out. Hopefully I don’t need to caution you to avoid the various flavored and spiced rums at this point now do I?

And here are a few cocktails you can try with your new-found stash of rum: