2008 Woodie Awards
The Spirit Of Freedom
Timothy Bleasdale
Issue date: 3/27/08 Section: Focus
From pirates to rock stars, there is one alcohol libation that has never ceased to be popular the world over - rum. It's a drink with a rich history, having left its mark on revolutions (violent ones and musical ones), human rights and, of course, the American palate.
What we know as rum today was first produced in the Caribbean sometime in the 17th century. But as young as the alcohol is, its story is one of conquest, exploration and experimentation dating as far back as 10,000 years ago in ancient New Guinea. It was there that historians estimate that sugar cane, the plant from which rum rises, was first cultivated. Over the centuries cultivation of this tall reed grass spread to Indonesia, the Philippines and India where it was finally encountered by the armies of Alexander the Great. General Nearchus of the central Asian army described it as an Indian reed that produces "honey without the need of bees, from which an intoxicating drink is made."
That drink was arak, a simple alcohol produced by fermenting the juice from a crushed sugar cane plant. When Alexander and his army brought the miracle grass back to the Mediterranean it became enormously popular. By the 1490s, the plant had become such a mainstay of agriculture that Christopher Columbus brought it with him to the island of Hispaniola on his second trip to the New World. There the crop found its most profitable home yet. The climate of the Caribbean suited sugar cane so well that, by 1511, it was being grown in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Barbados, Maritius, St. Kitts, and mainland South America followed soon after.
It was in Brazil that the Portuguese infamously introduced slavery to the production of sugar cane in the New World. When the distillation process was finally applied to arak in the 17th century and rum let loose upon the world, it proved so enormously profitable that the slave trade exploded. It was from this economic boon that the infamous "Triangle Trade" originated, in which a regular trade route was established by New England merchants who would sail to Africa and load their ships with slaves, bring the slaves to the Caribbean and then load up their ships with casks of rum for the Northern colonies. At about the same time, the rum trade was increasingly made more dangerous and, to modern rum enthusiasts, more glamorous by the involvement of pirates and privateers in the production, shipment and, lest we forget, consumption of rum (Captain Morgan rum is named after the famous privateer, Captain Henry Morgan, his majesty's governor in Jamaica).
What we know as rum today was first produced in the Caribbean sometime in the 17th century. But as young as the alcohol is, its story is one of conquest, exploration and experimentation dating as far back as 10,000 years ago in ancient New Guinea. It was there that historians estimate that sugar cane, the plant from which rum rises, was first cultivated. Over the centuries cultivation of this tall reed grass spread to Indonesia, the Philippines and India where it was finally encountered by the armies of Alexander the Great. General Nearchus of the central Asian army described it as an Indian reed that produces "honey without the need of bees, from which an intoxicating drink is made."
That drink was arak, a simple alcohol produced by fermenting the juice from a crushed sugar cane plant. When Alexander and his army brought the miracle grass back to the Mediterranean it became enormously popular. By the 1490s, the plant had become such a mainstay of agriculture that Christopher Columbus brought it with him to the island of Hispaniola on his second trip to the New World. There the crop found its most profitable home yet. The climate of the Caribbean suited sugar cane so well that, by 1511, it was being grown in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Barbados, Maritius, St. Kitts, and mainland South America followed soon after.
It was in Brazil that the Portuguese infamously introduced slavery to the production of sugar cane in the New World. When the distillation process was finally applied to arak in the 17th century and rum let loose upon the world, it proved so enormously profitable that the slave trade exploded. It was from this economic boon that the infamous "Triangle Trade" originated, in which a regular trade route was established by New England merchants who would sail to Africa and load their ships with slaves, bring the slaves to the Caribbean and then load up their ships with casks of rum for the Northern colonies. At about the same time, the rum trade was increasingly made more dangerous and, to modern rum enthusiasts, more glamorous by the involvement of pirates and privateers in the production, shipment and, lest we forget, consumption of rum (Captain Morgan rum is named after the famous privateer, Captain Henry Morgan, his majesty's governor in Jamaica).
Be the first to comment on this story