Did you know the spirit in your piña colada was born from literal trash
and was, according to a legend, used to store a dead celebrity?
This is the brief history of rum.
And before we dive in and rummage through incredible facts, make sure you subscribe
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One man's trash is another man's treasure.
The story of rum begins in a sea of garbage.
Back in the 17th Century, the Caribbean was the world's powerhouse
of sugar production.
And when they made sugar by crushing sugar cane and boiled the juices,
the main industrial waste was molasses.
The colonial sugar daddies were swimming in it and wondered how to get rid
of the damn thing.
Then colonial slaves, most likely those on the island of Nevis,
realized there's just enough sugar in molasses to attract yeast,
so they fermented and distilled it into alcohol.
Rum was born.
The startup spirit, however, was far from great.
A 1651 document from Barbados described the new potion.
"The main hooch they make on the island is known as 'kill-devil.' It's a hot,
hellish, and terrible liquor."
It's incredible how a horrible moonshine became the sipping delicacy we know today,
and how the Penguin from the original Batman had something to do with that.
More about that later.
The spirit of revolution.
Colonial America soon caught the rum fever, and by 1775,
the average American drank three-and-a-half gallons of rum per year.
America's landlord, George III of the United Kingdom, therefore decided to tax
sugar and, consequently, rum, in addition to tea.
Now, the Yankees were already less than pleased with the King and showering them
with taxes when they had no representation in the British Parliament was just another
insult to injury.
The sugar tax was one of the things that galvanized the colony into rebellion,
that led to the Revolutionary War, America's independence,
and barbecue every Fourth of July.
And that was just the first time that rum caused an uprising.
On the other side of the globe, about 40 years later,
and still under George III, the convict colony of Australia was known
for drunkenness and debauchery.
When Governor William Bligh, this jolly old chap,
outlawed the use of rum as currency, 400 soldiers with bayonets stormed
the government, arrested Bligh, and ruled the colony for two full years.
The lesson here? Don't mess with people's rum.
The sailor's spirit.
While the British monarchy taxed the American rum, they fueled their own
mariners with it.
Between 1850 and 1970, the Royal Navy issued a tot of rum
to every sailor every day at noon, sourced from a special barrel dedicated
to the current king or queen.
A tot, by the way, is one-eighth of a pint or 2.4 ounces.
What sailors love to do was drill a tiny hole in the barrel and suck the devil's
water through a straw.
Many died of alcohol poisoning, so please don't try that at home.
When Horatio Nelson, the British Admiral who kicked Napoleon's
butt at Cape Trafalgar was killed by a French sniper, his sailors put him in a
cask of alcohol to preserve his body.
Legend has it that they pickled him in rum and the sailors drained the barrel dry
before they reached England.
While, in reality, Admiral Nelson was preserved in brandy,
the story did give us a badass nickname for rum, Nelson's Blood.
The evolution of rum.
From distilled rubbish to pirate's fuel to sipping delight, rum has come a long way.
Today, seasoned spirit lovers sip on premium rum and many
a cocktail wouldn't exist without it.
When John F. Kennedy learned he won the Oval Office in 1960, it was a daiquiri
he sipped on.
But right after World War II, rum wasn't exactly esteemed yet.
The U.S. had a five-year supply of cheap rum.
Puerto Rico was stuck with 20 million gallons of it, while people preferred
to spend their money on stockings and jeans.
Something had to be done to bring the rumble back.
In 1948, Puerto Rico passed a law that said rum had to be aged at least
three years, while ad men launched an expensive campaign telling America to try
aged rum, and Uncle Sam even enlisted Burgess Meredith, the Penguin himself,
to star in a film called A Glassful of History, where the story
of rum was presented.
The government went all in to put rum back in people's glasses
and get those tax dollars.
Mai tais and tiki bars soon followed and the American palate wanted
flavors and quality.
When craft distilleries started popping up to cater to the demand in the
following decades, old rum brands upped their game as well.
They combed through their warehouses and used their best barrels for premium
and limited releases.
Names such as Ron Zacapa, Dictador, Ron Botran are now shorthand
for class and quality.
You wouldn't put a dead sailor in those, would you?
Turns out, the spirit we put in mojitos has a wild history
and it's pretty rumarkable.
Now, find yourself a quiet summery place and celebrate life with a glass of rum.
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