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Rum History


	The sugar cane “this reed which gives honey without the contest of the bees”, according to around Latin, is originating from New Guinea. It would have been discovered into 325 before J.C by the armies of Alexandre. It gains the Mediterranean shores before the beginning of our era. Pline the Old one mentions it and introduces, starting from word SARKARA. The word SACCHARUM which is undoubtedly at the origin of the word Rum ( in french Rhum), invented by the English starting from the simplification of “Saccharum”. But the rise of the sugar cane will come only after the discovery from the New World where it finds an extremly favourable medium to its development, particularly in the Caribbean. At the beginning of the XVIIème century work of the Labat father, to Gallant Marie (Dependancy of the Guadeloupe), contributes to develop and improve the development of the Caribbean Rum. In 1854, at the time when France undergoes a serious wine crisis (the vineyard is devastated by an attack of oïdium), a decree removes the customs duties on colonial alcohols. For Rum, it is the beginning of glory. But it is in 1876, with the devastation of the French vineyard by will phylloxera and the stop of the production of brandies of metropolis, that rum becomes the first French alcohol. During the war of 14-18 this position of leader is still consolidated and it is then, to protect brandies from reappearing Cognac and Armagnac, that the French government had to take measures of fixing of quotas of Rum. Agricultural Rum is the fruit of the direct distillation of the juice of the sugar cane, in opposition to the “industrial” Rum which defines the distillation of under products of the sugar refining . Ruined by the emergence of the beet sugar in France, the Caribbean sugar refineries disappeared. They were converted into sugar cane juice distillery (Vesou): Agricultural rum had been born. By the produced quantities, the white rum is the first alcohol of the world. Paradoxically, the production of Agricultural old rums makes some rarest of brandies. Indeed, the only distilliries which manufactures some, are in Guadeloupe, Martinique and with Marie-Galante which one can compare with the hundreds of distillings of Scottish Wisky, Armagnac and Cognac. Agricultural rum is a specificity, single in the world, of the French West Indies. If the island of Marie-Galante is entirely dedicated, since the XVIIème century, with the cane with sugar and rum, the Martinique rums are the only ones to profit from the Controlled Label of origin. Legendary history of rum: A text of the middle of the 17th century speaks about this brandy under the name of “wobbler " and “rumbullion” - “keep silent devil” describing the force released by this alcohol. At the end of this century, designation “wobbler” seems to disappear and the word rum (English translation of Rhum) - abbreviation of “rumbullion” - is used commonly. At its beginnings, rum was the drink of the slaves and the sailors. In 1655, the Admiral PEN, eminent member of Royal Navy, instituted the daily distribution of rations of rhums to the sailors. But it is into 1731 that the Admiral Vernon replaced it by a mixture made up of two volumes of water for a volume of rum. Generally, a lemon juice feature was added there to fight against the scurvy. This mixture was bâptized “grog” in homage to the nickname of the Admiral Vernon who always carried a jacket whose name was “grogram” (English grogram). In the Caribbean, the English had also taken the practice to marry rum with several other ingredients: tea, sugar, lemon, groove… They gave to this cocktail the name “punch”. Once again, the origin of the name is dubious and gives place to many interpretations. Most plausible of them is Indian. Indeed, in this language the word “panch” means five, precisely the number of ingredients necessary to the composition of a true punch. The rum heavy drinkers were generally the buccaneers and other adventurers. At that time, one of the most serious problems of the English Navy was to face to the desertion: the pirates had as a practice to recruit their crews by make the sailors get drunk in the ports; they were not then any more in a position to answer the call. The English boats left while giving up these some sailors who did not have any more other solutions but to become pirate in their turn! But the pirates were sometimes taken with their own trap as the mishap to John Rackam alias “Rackam the Red testifies to it” and to its crew. After having emptied all the rum cargo taken with a boat which they had approached, the frightening pirates, too drunk to resist, were captured by the English Royal Navy. This adventure ended in their hanging in 1720.