Jack Kelly writer
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AND A BOTTLE OF RUM
(AmericanHeritage.com, August 14, 2006)
“Rum is an American term,” the Prohibitionist’s Textbook
proclaimed in 1877, “applied to an American invention.” Born
in the seventeenth century, rum was one of the first mass-
market products manufactured in the New World, and rum
making was, after shipbuilding, one of the most important
industries of the early colonies.
In his spirited new book, And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the
New World in Ten Cocktails (Crown, $24), the travel writer
Wayne Curtis enshrines rum in the pantheon of things
American. “Rum,” he says, “is the history of America in a
glass.”
Rum has a democratic personality that suits an American
drink. Of all the spirits it is the least likely to forget its lowly
origins. What were those origins? Sugar cane, which had
come over with Columbus, thrived in the West Indies. At first
planters discarded molasses, the tar-colored byproduct of
their sugar refineries. Someone, probably on the island of
Barbados, got the idea of letting the stuff ferment and then
distilling the mash to produce a drinkable quaff along the
lines of brandy. Rum began its life, Curtis notes, as “the
distilled essence of fermented industrial waste.”
Rumbullion, as it was called, alias kill-devil, was described in
1651 as “hot, hellish, and terrible.” “The old-fashioned rum
Jefferson and Adams ordered would have been cloying,
greasy, nasty-smelling stuff,” Curtis reports. Colonists, like
generations to come, disguised the flavor in mixed drinks:
mimbo, bombo, syllabub, calibogus, and the widely popular
flip (beer, rum, and molasses, foamed with a red-hot poker).
Pirates loved rum in any form. Blackbeard, who ravaged
shipping off the Carolinas in the early 1700s, had a
legendary fondness for it. “Among his cocktails,” Curtis tells
us, “was a potion of gunpowder mixed with rum, which he
would ignite and swill while it flamed and popped.”
No real-life pirate, though, sang, “Fifteen men on the dead
man’s chest/Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” Robert Louis
Stevenson originated that familiar ditty in Treasure Island. “If
I'm not to have my rum now,” Billy Bones laments to young
Jim Hawkins, “I'm a poor old hulk on a lee shore.”
Sailors in His Majesty’s Navy were likewise fond of their ration
of rum. So fond that Adm. Edward Vernon decreed that
onboard rum be diluted four to one with water. This drink,
known as grog, was doled out twice a day in the British Navy
from 1756 until the custom was finally retired in 1970.
Northern colonists also downed their share of rum, which in
1700 cost about $4 a bottle in current dollars. The average
citizen drank five to seven shots of the crude spirit every day.
Efforts by the Crown to regulate the molasses trade, and with
it the prosperous New England distilling industry, contributed
to the tension that culminated in the Revolution.
Curtis dismisses the conventional wisdom about a triangular
trade by which New England rum was exchanged for African
slaves, who were shipped to the West Indies to produce the
molasses that went into making the rum. “Horrifically elegant,”
he says, but “as an historical fact, it lacks only one thing:
truth.” Rum did not play a large role in the slave trade. The
theory was promoted in the nineteenth century by
Southerners who wanted to point the finger of hypocrisy at
New England abolitionists and by temperance advocates
looking for yet another evil to hang on strong drink.
During the nineteenth century, rum faded, a “relic of the old
economy.” Grain, formerly in short supply, became
increasingly available for making spirits. There was no
reason to import molasses to brew what was considered an
inferior drink. Whiskey and beer reigned throughout the
1800s.
In 1919 the temperance army won its ultimate victory with the
ratification the Eighteenth Amendment. As Curtis notes,
“Prohibition, it turned out, was the best thing to happen to
rum.” Drinkers were driven south of the border, especially to
Cuba, where they made the acquaintance of the rums of the
Bacardi family. Using filters of sand and charcoal, the
Bacardis produced a light, dry, elegant rum that won new
fans.
With repeal, the drink was in a perfect position to retake a
respectable chunk of the U.S. market. “This three-hundred-
year-old spirit emerged from its century-long slumber into a
bright new day.” The daiquiri, “a perfect blend of lime, sugar,
rum, and ice,” became popular. The marriage of rum and
lime actually went back to the British Navy’s addition of citrus
juice to sailors’ grog rations in order to ward off scurvy.
By the end of World War II, rum was suffering another of its
periodic falls from fashion. Vodka came in, and “the future
belonged to the transparent.” Yet rum was already poised for
its most baroque comeback yet. The new trend began in a
tiny saloon in Hollywood called Don the Beachcomber and
was amplified by the Trader Vic’s chain of grog shops. By the
1950s it was a national sensation—the tiki bar.
“The tiki movement was in large part a reaction to the times,”
Curtis notes. The ersatz South Pacific atmosphere created
by thatching, wooden masks, and palm tree trunks was a
pleasant diversion in “the era of Wonder bread and iceberg
lettuce.” At the core of the movement was the tiki drink, a
powerful concoction that invariably included rum. Devotees
were invited to rearrange their cranial components with
drinks like “Pele’s Bucket of Fire,” the “Molucca Fireball,” and
the “Aku-Aku Lapu.” The popular “Zombie” contained five
varieties of rum, along with lime juice, bitters, maraschino
liqueur, and absinthe, Curtis tells us. “Perhaps it would be
wise to locate the coroner before serving this,” a recipe book
suggested.
Picking up Curtis’s book is like walking into a bar and sitting
down beside a tippler who’s full of stories and knows how to
relate them with good humor and sly wit. He’s adept at
passing on the most fascinating parts of the tale and not ever
boring you. For instance, we learn that a Mai Tai was the first
thing Patty Hearst wanted after being sprung from her
Symbionese Liberation Army rap.
Through it all, Curtis is delightful company. His obvious
affection for both rum and history will beguile many readers
into conducting some field research of their own
(AmericanHeritage.com, August 14, 2006)
“Rum is an American term,” the Prohibitionist’s Textbook
proclaimed in 1877, “applied to an American invention.” Born
in the seventeenth century, rum was one of the first mass-
market products manufactured in the New World, and rum
making was, after shipbuilding, one of the most important
industries of the early colonies.
In his spirited new book, And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the
New World in Ten Cocktails (Crown, $24), the travel writer
Wayne Curtis enshrines rum in the pantheon of things
American. “Rum,” he says, “is the history of America in a
glass.”
Rum has a democratic personality that suits an American
drink. Of all the spirits it is the least likely to forget its lowly
origins. What were those origins? Sugar cane, which had
come over with Columbus, thrived in the West Indies. At first
planters discarded molasses, the tar-colored byproduct of
their sugar refineries. Someone, probably on the island of
Barbados, got the idea of letting the stuff ferment and then
distilling the mash to produce a drinkable quaff along the
lines of brandy. Rum began its life, Curtis notes, as “the
distilled essence of fermented industrial waste.”
Rumbullion, as it was called, alias kill-devil, was described in
1651 as “hot, hellish, and terrible.” “The old-fashioned rum
Jefferson and Adams ordered would have been cloying,
greasy, nasty-smelling stuff,” Curtis reports. Colonists, like
generations to come, disguised the flavor in mixed drinks:
mimbo, bombo, syllabub, calibogus, and the widely popular
flip (beer, rum, and molasses, foamed with a red-hot poker).
Pirates loved rum in any form. Blackbeard, who ravaged
shipping off the Carolinas in the early 1700s, had a
legendary fondness for it. “Among his cocktails,” Curtis tells
us, “was a potion of gunpowder mixed with rum, which he
would ignite and swill while it flamed and popped.”
No real-life pirate, though, sang, “Fifteen men on the dead
man’s chest/Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” Robert Louis
Stevenson originated that familiar ditty in Treasure Island. “If
I'm not to have my rum now,” Billy Bones laments to young
Jim Hawkins, “I'm a poor old hulk on a lee shore.”
Sailors in His Majesty’s Navy were likewise fond of their ration
of rum. So fond that Adm. Edward Vernon decreed that
onboard rum be diluted four to one with water. This drink,
known as grog, was doled out twice a day in the British Navy
from 1756 until the custom was finally retired in 1970.
Northern colonists also downed their share of rum, which in
1700 cost about $4 a bottle in current dollars. The average
citizen drank five to seven shots of the crude spirit every day.
Efforts by the Crown to regulate the molasses trade, and with
it the prosperous New England distilling industry, contributed
to the tension that culminated in the Revolution.
Curtis dismisses the conventional wisdom about a triangular
trade by which New England rum was exchanged for African
slaves, who were shipped to the West Indies to produce the
molasses that went into making the rum. “Horrifically elegant,”
he says, but “as an historical fact, it lacks only one thing:
truth.” Rum did not play a large role in the slave trade. The
theory was promoted in the nineteenth century by
Southerners who wanted to point the finger of hypocrisy at
New England abolitionists and by temperance advocates
looking for yet another evil to hang on strong drink.
During the nineteenth century, rum faded, a “relic of the old
economy.” Grain, formerly in short supply, became
increasingly available for making spirits. There was no
reason to import molasses to brew what was considered an
inferior drink. Whiskey and beer reigned throughout the
1800s.
In 1919 the temperance army won its ultimate victory with the
ratification the Eighteenth Amendment. As Curtis notes,
“Prohibition, it turned out, was the best thing to happen to
rum.” Drinkers were driven south of the border, especially to
Cuba, where they made the acquaintance of the rums of the
Bacardi family. Using filters of sand and charcoal, the
Bacardis produced a light, dry, elegant rum that won new
fans.
With repeal, the drink was in a perfect position to retake a
respectable chunk of the U.S. market. “This three-hundred-
year-old spirit emerged from its century-long slumber into a
bright new day.” The daiquiri, “a perfect blend of lime, sugar,
rum, and ice,” became popular. The marriage of rum and
lime actually went back to the British Navy’s addition of citrus
juice to sailors’ grog rations in order to ward off scurvy.
By the end of World War II, rum was suffering another of its
periodic falls from fashion. Vodka came in, and “the future
belonged to the transparent.” Yet rum was already poised for
its most baroque comeback yet. The new trend began in a
tiny saloon in Hollywood called Don the Beachcomber and
was amplified by the Trader Vic’s chain of grog shops. By the
1950s it was a national sensation—the tiki bar.
“The tiki movement was in large part a reaction to the times,”
Curtis notes. The ersatz South Pacific atmosphere created
by thatching, wooden masks, and palm tree trunks was a
pleasant diversion in “the era of Wonder bread and iceberg
lettuce.” At the core of the movement was the tiki drink, a
powerful concoction that invariably included rum. Devotees
were invited to rearrange their cranial components with
drinks like “Pele’s Bucket of Fire,” the “Molucca Fireball,” and
the “Aku-Aku Lapu.” The popular “Zombie” contained five
varieties of rum, along with lime juice, bitters, maraschino
liqueur, and absinthe, Curtis tells us. “Perhaps it would be
wise to locate the coroner before serving this,” a recipe book
suggested.
Picking up Curtis’s book is like walking into a bar and sitting
down beside a tippler who’s full of stories and knows how to
relate them with good humor and sly wit. He’s adept at
passing on the most fascinating parts of the tale and not ever
boring you. For instance, we learn that a Mai Tai was the first
thing Patty Hearst wanted after being sprung from her
Symbionese Liberation Army rap.
Through it all, Curtis is delightful company. His obvious
affection for both rum and history will beguile many readers
into conducting some field research of their own