Rum, Rum or Rhum, we will tell you about the beginnings, its production and how Rum has played a role in the economy, culture, and politics of many of the rum-producing countries.
Before the pirates...
Most people associate pirates with rum , but the wide distribution of this spirit was boosted by the British navy when it adopted rum as its drink of choice in 1655.
One of the main challenges of 16th century sea travel was providing marine crews with a supply of liquids for long voyages. The Navy Captains turned to the most readily available sources of liquid: water and beer. Because water stored in barrels spoiled quickly and beer turned sour when stored for too long, sailors in the Royal British Navy had real problems supplying themselves with liquids. The longer the voyage, the greater the liquid cargo required, and the greater the storage problems.
When seagoing vessels entered the Caribbean regions, captains took advantage of a cheaper and more available source of liquid sold by local sugarcane plantations called "kil demonio", a byproduct of the sugarcane byproduct that later became known Like Ron . Rum quickly replaced beer rations and became an official ration of British Navy ships from 1655 onwards.
The large rations of rum aboard British ships were causing "rumbullion" and drunkenness among sailors which caused discipline problems and caused Vice Admiral Edward Vernon, in 1740, to issue an order to dilute the rum rations with sugar and juice. from Lima
Many of the famous pirates of the 17th and 18th centuries were recruited from plundered naval ships, they were sailors tired of poor pay, limited rum rations, nutritional diseases, and the harshness of their ship's captain. Possessing seamanship and offering an equal share in any pirated loot, it is not difficult to see why many chose the pirate's life of freedom, democracy and frivolity. Notorious pirates, Captain Kidd and Morgan Nelson began their naval careers as naval officers.
Without the Crown's strict rum rationing guidelines, pirate captains took advantage of rum's popularity to gain favor with the crew and rum was often the largest cargo and preferred reward aboard their ships. The search for rum was constant and many ships were looted as a result of their crew being too drunk to take proper cargo from the ship.
Rum was a part of daily British naval life until 1970. It is now only served on special occasions declared by the Queen or high-ranking naval officers.
Sugarcane
Before it began to be cultivated, sugarcane grew naturally throughout the tropical regions of Southeast Asia from Burma to central China and the Pacific. While there is evidence suggesting cultivation as early as 4000 BC, the first record of human consumption can be found in an ancient Hindu Sanskrit manuscript called Mānasollāsa (cA 1129 AD) where a fermented cane beer called Asava is mentioned.
While the manufacture of alcohol from sugar cane dates back hundreds of years to places such as China, India and Iran, much of today's rum or rhum rum production is focused on the Caribbean and Latin America.
The first distillation of rum took place on the sugar cane plantations of the Caribbean in the 17th century.
A common sugar plantation consisted of a luxurious Casa Grande or manor house, while workers resided in rows of attached huts commonly centered around a large stake or tree called a Pelourinho used for both hanging and beating disorderly slaves. These were the beginnings of rum rum or rhum.
Plantation slaves discovered a viscous liquid that was the residue of sugar cane juices once boiled and allowed to sit in clay vats until the sugar crystallized. This viscous liquid was molasses. At first molasses was given to slaves and cattle as food and it was these and poor whites who began to trade and sell it as a sweetener until someone discovered that during its initial boiling and fermentation a hot and intoxicating liquor came out. which soon became very popular.
The earliest recorded documentation of a sugar cane distillate can be found in 1552 in a report by Governor Tome de Souza of Bahia, Brazil. The report mentions that slaves were more willing to work if they were allowed to drink the liquor made from raw cane juice. It quickly spread among slave populations largely due to the availability of cane and ease of production. Eight years later, the government added new restrictions by prohibiting anyone who was not a slave from drinking cane alcohol.
Later, distillation of these alcoholic byproducts concentrated the alcohol and removed impurities, producing the first true rums, the first Rum Rum or Rhum. Tradition suggests that rum originated on the island of Barbados.
According to some historians, the first molasses rum to be produced was by a Dutch emigrant named Pietr Blower in 1637. Mr. Blower had previously practiced distillation in Brazil and settled in a new British colony in Barbados , Pietr introduced the island to the distillation and sugar cane.
Barbados had been colonized by England, where they attempted to use the tropical climate in the cultivation of indigo (Indigofera tinctoria), a bush-type plant from which the highly prized indigo dye was produced. With little success with the manufacture of the dye, the colonists of the islands turned to sugar cane from the seeds supplied by Blower, to produce sugar cubes for export. Following suit, locals began distilling a spirit from the rich molasses that remained.
A similar situation occurred on the French island of Martinique when in 1644 a Dutch Jew named Benjamin Da Costa introduced distillation and a sugar mill to the islands' settlers.
It is therefore no accident that rum or rhum rum became so popular around the most prosperous "Golden Age" of piracy from 1650 - 1740. This was also, coincidentally, the time when the Slave trade began to take off and New England entered the triangle between Africa and the Caribbean with rum used as currency of the slave trade.
Rum has a very colorful history, very intertwined with that of the United States. It wasn't always made as well as it is today, and for years it had a bad reputation as it was terribly intoxicating.
The rum business helped New England prosper, not only was drinking rum popular in colonial America, but so was its manufacturing.
Domestic rum production complemented nearly 4 million gallons arriving from outside the colonies, primarily from the Caribbean, particularly the West Indies.
The US ban on distilling rum, far from killing production, created clandestine distillation and trafficking with the Caribbean, particularly Cuba, serving as a constant source of illicit rum. Ernest Hemingway , for his part, helped hone rum's allure with his enjoyment of Cuban-made Daiquiris and other rum-based cocktails .
As distillation technologies have continued to improve, rum has lost its negative image. Today there is a proliferation of styles, with different ingredients and fermentation and aging methods that serve to distinguish them. The rums run the gamut, from extremely light and dry to heady and sweet, herbaceous rums, as well as extremely elegant and delicious.
Now that we know a little more about the history of rum, can you tell us which ones are your favorites?