Rum is a liquor made by fermenting and then distilling sugarcane molasses or sugarcane juice. The distillate, initially a clear liquid, is often aged in barrels. Rum originated in the Caribbean in the 17th century, where it was likely first created by enslaved people on sugar plantations, but has come to be produced in nearly every major sugar-producing region of the world.
Rums are produced in various styles. Light rums are commonly used in cocktails like the Mojito and Daiquiri, while "aged" or "dark" rums offer deeper flavor profiles and are often drunk straight (U.S. English) or neat (Commonwealth English), iced ("on the rocks"), or used in cooking.
Historically, rum has served as a medium of economic exchange, playing a role in the triangular trade, slave trade, and colonial economies of the West Indies and British colonies. It has deep cultural associations with the Royal Navy and maritime history, and has been used to fund enterprises such as organized crime, and military insurgencies such as the American Revolution and the Australian Rum Rebellion.
Etymology
The origin of the word "rum" is unclear. The most widely accepted hypothesis is that it is related to "rumbullion", a beverage made from boiling sugar cane stalks, or possibly "rumbustion", which was a slang word for "uproar" or "tumult"; a noisy uncontrollable exuberance, though the origin of those words and the nature of the relationship are unclear. Both words surfaced in English about the same time as rum did (1651 for "rumbullion", and before 1654 "rum").
There have been various other theories: That it arose from the obsolete British slang adjective "rum", meaning "high quality"; "rum booze" is attested from 1725. Given the harshness of early rum, this is unlikely. That it came from the large drinking glasses used by Dutch seamen known as rummers, from the Dutch word , a drinking glass. That it is related to ramboozle and rumfustian, popular British drinks of the mid-17th century. However, neither was made with rum, but rather eggs, ale, wine, sugar, and various spices. That it was short for , French for aroma. That it was short for , Latin for "again; a second time."
Regardless of the original source, the name was already in common use by 1654, when the General Court of Connecticut ordered the confiscations of "whatsoever Barbados liquors, commonly called rum, kill the devil and the like". A short time later in May 1657, the General Court of Massachusetts also decided to make illegal the sale of strong liquor "whether knowne by the name of rumme, strong water, wine, brandy, etc".
In current usage, the name used for a rum is often based on its place of origin.
is a French term for a rum made from fresh sugar cane juice rather than molasses, in French-speaking locales such as Martinique. A ("old rum") is an aged French rum that meets several other requirements.
Some of the many other names for rum are Nelson's blood, kill-devil, demon water, pirate's drink, navy neater, and Barbados water. A version of rum from Newfoundland is referred to by the name screech, while some low-grade West Indies rums are called tafia.
History Precursors and origins Early fermented sugarcane wines were widespread and have been made for thousands of years in Austronesian Island Southeast Asia, where sugarcane originated. They included basi, intus, and palek of the Philippines; kilaṅ and sīddhu of the ancient pre-Islamic Javanese people; and brum or brǝm (which also applied to rice beer) of the Javanese and Malay people. Marco Polo recorded a 14th-century account of a "very good wine of sugar(cane)" that was offered to him in the area that became modern-day Iran. A liquid identified as rum has been found in a tin bottle found on the Swedish warship Vasa, which sank in 1628. A sugar-making house under the plantation owner Richard Ligon containing a furnace, a cooling basin, and a filling room has been recorded on the island of Barbados since 1673. Maria Dembinska states that King Peter I of Cyprus, also called Pierre I de Lusignan (9 October 1328 – 17 January 1369), brought rum with him as a gift for the other royal dignitaries at the Congress of Kraków, held in 1364. This is plausible given the position of Cyprus as a significant producer of sugar in the Middle Ages, although the alcoholic sugar drink named rum by Dembinska may not have resembled modern distilled rums very closely. Dembinska also suggests Cyprus rum was often drunk mixed with an almond milk drink, also produced in Cyprus, called soumada. Rum production has been recorded in Brazil in the 1520s. Shidhu, a drink produced by fermentation of sugarcane juice, is mentioned in Sanskrit texts.
Many historians now believe that rum-making found its way to the Caribbean islands along with sugarcane and its cultivation methods from Brazil. The traditional history of modern-style rum tells of its invention in the Caribbean, in the 17th century, by slaves on sugarcane plantations, who discovered that molasses, a by-product of the sugar refining process, could be fermented to produce alcohol, and then distilled. The earliest record, in a 1651 document from Barbados, mentions the island of Nevis in particular:
By the late 17th century rum had replaced French brandy as the exchange alcohol of choice in the triangle trade. Canoemen and guards on the African side of the trade, who had previously been paid in brandy, were now paid in rum.
Colonial North America
After the development of rum in the Caribbean, the drink's popularity spread to Colonial North America. To support the demand for the drink, the first rum distillery in the Thirteen Colonies was set up in 1664 on Staten Island, NY. Boston, Massachusetts, had a distillery three years later. The manufacture of rum became early colonial New England's largest and most prosperous industry. New England became a distilling center also due to the technical, metalworking and cooperage skills and abundant lumber; the rum produced there was lighter: more like whiskey. Much of the rum was exported, and distillers in Newport of Rhode Island even made an extra strong rum specifically to be used as a slave currency. Rhode Island rum even joined gold as an accepted currency in Europe for a period of time. While New England triumphed in price and consistency, Europeans still viewed the best rums as coming from the Caribbean. Estimates of rum consumption in the American colonies before the American Revolutionary War had every man, woman, or child drinking an average of of rum each year.
In the 18th century, ever increasing demands for sugar, molasses, rum, and slaves led to a feedback loop that intensified the triangular trade. When France banned the production of rum in their New World possessions to end the competition with domestically produced brandy, New England distillers became able to undercut producers in the British West Indies by buying molasses cheaply from French sugar plantations. The outcry from the British rum industry led to the Molasses Act 1733, which levied a prohibitive tax on molasses imported into the Thirteen Colonies from foreign countries or colonies. Rum at this time accounted for approximately 80% of New England's exports, and paying the duty would have put the distilleries out of business, so that compliance with and enforcement of the act were minimal. Strict enforcement of the Molasses Act's successor, the Sugar Act 1764, may have been an additional factor in causing the American Revolution. In the slave trade, rum was also used as a medium of exchange. For example, the slave Venture Smith, whose history was later published, had been purchased in Africa for four gallons of rum plus a piece of calico.
In "The Doctor's Secret Journal", an account of the happenings at Fort Michilimackinac in northern Michigan from 1769 to 1772 by Daniel Morison, a surgeon's mate, it was noted that there was not much for the men to do and drinking rum was very popular. In fact, Ensign Robert Johnstone, one of the officers, "thought proper to turn trader by selling (the) common rum to the soldiers & all others by whom he might gain a penny in this clandestine Manner". To conceal this theft, "he was observed to have filled up several Barrels of common rum with boiling water to make up the Leakage".
The popularity of rum continued after the American Revolution; George Washington insisted on a barrel of Barbados rum at his 1789 inauguration.
Rum started to play an important role in the political system, and candidates attempted to influence the outcome of an election through their generosity with rum. The people would attend the hustings to see which candidate appeared more generous. The candidate was expected to drink with the people to show he was independent and truly a republican.
Naval rum
The association of rum with the Royal Navy began in 1655 when a Royal Navy fleet captured the island of Jamaica. With the availability of domestically produced rum, the British changed the daily ration of liquor given to seamen from French brandy to rum.
Rum's association with piracy began with English privateers' trading in the valuable commodity. During the Golden Age of Piracy, these English privateers and pirates in the Caribbean typically preferred to plunder the shores and ships of the Spanish Empire. However, in contrast to the bounty of rum in the English colonies, Spain forbade the production of rum across its colonial sugarcane plantations, as a protectionist measure for its own industries. As such, pirates actually were most likely to steal Spanish wine and brandy, and drink rum upon returning to Jamaica or Barbados. Despite this, the association between the rum and piracy was strengthened in popular culture by literary works such as Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, and Blackbeard's famous appetite for rum.
Naval rum was originally a blend mixed from rums produced in the West Indies. It was initially supplied at a strength of 100 degrees (UK) proof, 57% alcohol by volume (ABV), as that was the only strength that could be tested (by the gunpowder test) before the invention of the hydrometer. The term "Navy strength" is used in modern Britain to specify spirits bottled at 57% ABV. In 1866 the Navy fixed the issued strength at 95.5 proof (defined as "4.5 under-Proof", equal to 54.6% ABV).
While the ration was originally given neat or mixed with lime juice, the practice of watering down the rum began around 1740. To help minimize the effect of the alcohol on his sailors, Admiral Edward Vernon had the rum ration watered, producing a mixture that became known as grog. Many believe the term was coined in honour of the grogram cloak Admiral Vernon wore in rough weather. The Royal Navy continued to give its sailors a daily rum ration, known as a "tot", until the practice was abolished on 31 July 1970.
Today, a tot (totty) of rum is still issued on special occasions, using an order to "splice the mainbrace", which may only be given by a member of the royal family or, on certain occasions, the admiralty board in the UK, with similar restrictions in other Commonwealth navies. Recently, such occasions have included royal marriages or birthdays, or special anniversaries. In the days of daily rum rations, the order to "splice the mainbrace" meant double rations would be issued.