Sugar, it seems, is in almost all of our foods. And not just sugar, but sweeteners in general, are added to so many of our processed foods. As an additive it enhances flavor and aroma, and it helps products retain moisture. And in this day and age sugar is relatively inexpensive. But many are surprised to learn that sugar and sweeteners as an everyday food additive are a relatively recent innovation, and prior to the European invasions of the Western Hemisphere, sugar was a very costly luxury item.
As Europeans established sugar plantations throughout their Caribbean and Latin America territories, sugar became more readily available for European markets. As the demand and consumption of cane sugar grew in the second half of the Second Millennia CE, the sugar processors were left with the byproduct molasses, and what can be made from molasses? Rum, and it would become the first distilled spirit to be sold around the globe.
It would be easy to think that sugar cane was indigenous to the New World, since that is where most of the world’s sugar is grown in the Caribbean islands and Latin America, but it isn’t. It first came from Southeast Asia, and then spread into India, and eventually into the Arab world. In India and China, a fermented sugar wine was made as early as the late first millennia BCE. Marco Polo during his travels through Asia in the 14th Century CE noted of a “very good wine of sugar” which he was served in Persia. Because of the rarity of sugar in Europe, Marco Polo would have been quite surprised by this sugar wine.
Pre- Columbian Old World Sugar Production
In Medieval Europe, sugar was considered by Europeans to be ‘white gold.’ There are very few places in Europe where sugar cane can be grown. Sugar cane requires a tropical climate and a large amount of water. The ancient Greeks and Romans knew of sugar, but even to them it was an exotic commodity that was only used for medicinal purposes; it was thought to aid in digestion and relieve urinary tract issues. In the 1st Century CE, Roman philosopher and naturalist, Pliny the Elder noted of two types of sugar; Arabic and Indian, of which he said, that from India was far superior.
With the expansion of the Muslim world in the late First Millennia CE, sugar cane production was established in isolated pockets of the Middle East, primarily because of the superior Arab technology with irrigation. As stated previously, sugar cane cultivation requires abundant water, so the areas with the most sugar production included the Tigris and Euphrates valleys, the Nile Valley, and the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, but there were also pockets of sugar cultivation found in what is now Tunisia, Morocco, Sicily, Cyprus, Malta, and the Sierra Nevada and Mercia regions of Moorish Spain. Besides the need for tropical or subtropical conditions and lots of water, the production of sugar was also heavily labor intensive, and the Arabs relied on slave labor and this was supported by an extensive network of slave trading throughout Africa; in the Medieval world, slavery, and serfdom, where endemic in all societies.
Europe was really introduced to sugar when it began to be brought home by returning crusaders in the early 2nd Millennia CE; but it was only the nobility of Europe was introduced to sugar at this time. Honey was the only other sweetener available in Europe, and honey was also an expensive commodity. The lower strata of European society didn’t have much in the way of sweet foods. Sweet fruit was really the only food available to the poor, as that, too, was expensive and considered a treat. So the majority of people didn’t have much sugar in their diet. And they didn’t crave it in the same manner that we do today, simply because they hadn’t yet been conditioned and developed a sweet tooth.
Europeans tried their hand at sugar production. In the 14th and 15th Centuries, the Venetians and the Spanish both developed sugar plantations, in Lebanon and the Atlantic islands of Madeira, the Azores, and the Canaries, respectively. These ventures never produced enough sugar to meet even the demand coming from the aristocratic societies of Europe. At the end of the 15th Century, Madeira was the largest exporter of sugar in the world, and it still wasn’t enough to satisfy a growing market.
And then in 1492, Columbus sailed the Ocean blue.
Three things converged at once at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th Centuries that changed the dietary habits of the world’s population for centuries to come- Firstly, the Europeans discovery and invasion of tropical lands in the New World. Secondly, the development of the African Slave Trade. And finally, the burgeoning European market for sugar.
On Columbus’s second voyage to the New World in 1493 he brought sugar cane from the Canary Islands with him. In the matter of a decade, sugar cane was being grown on all of the Caribbean possessions of Spain, and on the South American mainland of Brazil by the Portuguese. At first the Spanish and the Portuguese tried to enslave the indigenous people to work the sugar plantations, but the natives either succumbed to Old World diseases to which they had no immunity, while others committed suicide rather than be enslaved. So, to get workers, they imported slaves from Africa.
Over the next four centuries, approximately eleven million slaves were transported from Africa to the New World, and as many as half of all slaves captured in African interior died on their way to the slave trading coast, and then 10 to 15 percent of all captured slaves died on the voyage across the Atlantic. The cost in human life for the expansion of agriculture in the New World is horribly astonishing. With the conquering of tropical lands with abundant water supplies, and the availability of labor from human bondage, by 1540 there were approximately 3,000 sugar mills processing ‘white gold’ for export to Europe. The price on sugar dropped dramatically, and by the 17th Century, sugar was no longer a luxury item; it was a staple among the Middle classes of Europe.
Another thing was going on in Europe at this same time; the expanding science of distillation of spirits, but surprisingly enough, it was another hundred years after the establishment of sugar in the New World before someone had the bright idea of distilling the byproduct of sugar production, molasses. When sugar cane is harvested it is chopped and the sugar juice is pressed from it. The juice is then boiled to evaporate the moisture from it, leaving a concentrated sucrose liquid, called the first boiling, which has the highest sugar content.
Diagram of Sugar Works from the Caribbean, circa 18th Century
During this boiling impurities rise to the top of the vat where they are skimmed off, leaving cane syrup which is processed into granulated sugar. The impurities that were skimmed off still had some sugar content (and today using modern methods, more sugar can be extracted from theses leavings, but this wasn’t available in 17th Century), and the skimmed off impurities would be boiled down into molasses. This is not a sweet sorghum molasses used a sweetener in cookies and candies, this is blackstrap molasses; dark, very viscous, and bitter. This product is then mixed with water, yeast is added, it is allowed to ferment before it is distilled into rum.
Video: How Authentic Caribbean Rum is Made
Where the first rum was made is a matter of debate. Some sources cite that the Portuguese in Brazil were producing a drink they called cane brandy as early as the 1620’s, but the first documented evidence of rum production was on the island of Barbados by the English in 1647. Richard Ligon was on the run from his creditors in England, after the loss of his fortune during the English Civil War, in which he backed Charles I who was captured executed by Parliament. Ligon sailed to Barbados, where he purchased a half stake in a sugar plantation. Sugar had just been introduced to Barbados from Brazil in 1640, so it could be likely that they learned of the distillation of sugar byproducts from the Portuguese. Regardless, it was here that Ligon found the sugar makers distilling molasses into a drink they called “Kill-Devil.”
According to Ligon the drink was “infinitely strong, but not very pleasant to the taste… The people drink much of it, indeed too much; for it often layes them asleep on the ground.” He also noted that it was traded to the local planters who didn’t have sugar processing on their plantations, and it was sold to ships that would transport the liquor to other ports as well as drink it along the way.
In 1651, the first use of the name we call the liquor today appears in the English language as “Rumbullion.” Rumbullion is a slang word from the south of England meaning “a brawl or violent commotion,” which one can see how that name came about, when one contemporary described the liquor, “(as) made of sugar canes distilled, and a hot, hellish and terrible liquor.” Rumbullion soon shortened to rum, and began spread throughout the Caribbean and beyond.
Slaves Cutting Sugar Cane in Antiqua, circa early 19th Century
All across the Caribbean Islands where sugar cane was grown, rum was given to the slaves when they arrived as part of the “seasoning process,” it was thought that it would weed out the weak and subdue and weaken the unruly. Slaves became dependent on regular rations of rum; the planters literally made them into alcoholics. They just needed their backs, not their wits. It was also used as an inducement; the slaves would be rewarded with extra rum for catching rats and doing hardship work voluntarily. Depending on the plantation, slaves were given anywhere from two or threes gallons of rum a year or as much as thirteen gallons. The slaves would often use the rum to barter for extra food. Rum became an important tool of social control in the slave labor based economy of sugar production.
This connection between slavery, sugar, and rum contributed to what historians now call the Triangular Trade. The African slavers, that is the Africans on the west coast of the continent who captured slaves from the interior, developed a taste for Caribbean rum; it became one of the chief bartering items in their dealing with the Europeans. While the sugar from the New World was primarily going to Europe, by the late 1600’s, rum production had also emerged in the British colonies in New England, where most of the molasses were being shipped to Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Hampshire. Rum soon became the most popular distilled spirit in British North America. But the greater portion of this rum was shipped to the west coast of Africa where it would be traded for more slaves. It replaced brandy as the favorite spirit among the slave lords.
Diagram of Triangular Trade During the British Colonial Period, circa late 16th and early 17th Century
Rum became the first global drink. Tom Standage said it best in his book, A History of the World in Six Glasses.
“Unlike beer, which is usually produced and consumed locally, and wine that is usually made and traded within a specific region, rum was the result of the convergence of materials, people and technologies from around the world, and the product of several interesting historical forces.”
Sugar from Asia reaches the Arabs, who introduce it to Europe, the Europeans took sugar production to the New World, and only with the labor of a captive work force were they able to succeed in the enterprise. The rise of distilled spirits and the technology allowed waste products from sugar to be made into rum. And the buccaneering spirit of the Age of Exploration and Conquest spread rum around the world.
Ships and sailors carried rum all over world. From 1655 onward, rum replaced beer as the daily ration of alcohol on Royal Navy ships in the Caribbean. And it was the British Navy who invented the very first cocktail ever made. Admiral Edward Vernon issued an order that rum served to the sailors should be mixed with two pints of water, along with lime juice and sugar. The drink was immediately referred to by the Admirals nickname, “Old Grogram” because he wore a waterproof cloak made from grogram, which was a type of waxed cloth. Later on the sailors just shortened the name to Grog.
British Sailors receiving their daily Grog rations, circa late 19th Century
The Royal Navy’s pursers had a slight problem with the rum they acquired for the grog; there was no accurate way to determine the alcohol content of liquors before the invention of the hydrometer in the 1800’s. A method was devised at the Royal Arsenal to measure the strength of the rum. They would mix a little of the rum with a little bit of water, and a few grains of black powder. By using a magnifying glass and concentrated beam of sunlight focused on the mixture, they could then determine what concentration of alcohol the rum had. If the powder didn’t ignite, that meant the rum was weak and less water would be added to make the grog. If it exploded, then it was too strong and more water would be added. But if it just sizzled a little and the powder barely ignited it was deemed to be the correct strength, about 48 percent alcohol. This was known as ‘proofing’ the rum, and it is where we get our term “proof” in regards to measuring the amount of alcohol in a particular distillate.
Rum, and grog in particular, by replacing beer in the British Navy’s rations, contributed to the dramatic reduction of scurvy among the British sailors, as compared to other navies, who were still using beer or wine as the daily ration of alcohol. Scurvy is caused by a lack of Vitamin C, which is found in the juice of limes and lemons, a minor component in grog. Beer contains no Vitamin C, and wine only has trace amounts. So, as the British resistance to scurvy increased, the others’ resistance to the disease was nominal to nonexistent. And some historians regard this as one of the major advantages that allowed the British to command naval superiority around the globe during the 18th and 19th Centuries. And it’s also the reason we call the British sailors “limeys.”
Often we think of rum and pirates, and yes, while there is an association between the two, it really was no more than any other seafarers, or anybody else, during the golden age of piracy in the late 17th and early 18th Centuries; everybody in the British Empire and in European North and South America was drinking rum at the time. What really cemented the association of the pirates with rum was Robert Louis Stevenson’s 19th Century classic, Treasure Island, published in 1883
In British Colonial America, rum was the favorite spirit. It was cheaper than brandy, since it was made from leftover molasses instead of expensive wine; England didn’t have any vineyards, and early colonial attempts at grape production weren’t very successful. The poor could afford rum, and generally drank it straight, as Boston minister, Increase Mather, decried in 1686, “They that are poor, and wicked too, can for a penny or two pence make themselves drunk.” The craftsman class and the well to do of the colonies used rum to make very elaborate punches, with the addition of fruit juices, spices and sugar.
Rum production became one of the leading industries in New England, even though it was noted by those at the time who were familiar with West Indian rum, that the New England version of the spirit, while it was much cheaper to purchase, was not very good in comparison to the spirit from Barbados and other British colonies in the Caribbean. The production of New England rum grew so quickly that by the early 1720’s the British sugar producers couldn’t supply the rum distillers with enough molasses to meet demand. At the same time, the French had prohibited the manufacture of rum in their colonies in order to protect the domestic brandy industry. The French sugar producers in Haiti and the Lesser Antilles were more than happy to sell their left over molasses to the Yankee distillers, at cheaper prices than the British, too. And at this same time, the British were losing out to the French in the European sugar market. The English in attempt to balance the competition with the rival empire, passed the Molasses Act in 1733. The act called for a prohibitive duty of sixpence per gallon on any foreign molasses imported into British North America. So rather than comply, the distillers smuggled the molasses in from the French islands. Local officials who were in charge of enforcing the law were bribed to turn a blind eye. Within a few years of the passing of the law, it is estimated that 80% of the rum produced in New England was being made with French molasses.
Rum production in New England soared. In 1738 there were only eight distilleries in Boston; by 1750 there were 63. Rum from New England was being sold and transported to points all across the globe. And its popularity among the American colonists was unbounded. When George Washington ran for election to the Virginia House of Burgesses (the colonial assembly) in 1758, his campaign handed out to potential voters 28 gallons of rum, 50 gallons of rum punch, along with another 82 gallons of wine, beer, and cider- in a county of only 391 voters.
After the end of the French and Indian War, the British realized that they weren’t getting any revenue off of the Molasses Act, and they subsequently passed the Sugar Act in 1764, and they gave it some teeth. First they dropped the duty on imported molasses in half to three pence on the gallon, but it was to be enforced. Local collectors were given incentives to collect the duty. Colonial governors were required to enforce the law strictly and arrest smugglers, or lose their governorships. The Royal Navy was given the power to stop ships at sea and collect the duty on molasses in transport. Now as you can imagine, this didn’t set well with the New Englanders; they had been getting away with not paying any duty for 31 years, and a tax of any kind was abhorrent to them. The Sugar Act was just another blunder in the series of blunders that the British Parliament made between the end of the French and Indian War and the opening of the American Revolution. (See blog Vol. 1, No. 3 on the Whiskey Rebellion.)
Rum was even a part of one of the most famous rides in American history; the Ride of Paul Revere. On the eve of the battle at Lexington Concord, went on his route to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock and others of the approaching British Army. He stopped at key spots where it was prearranged that a particular person there would get the word out to the others in the area who needed to know. One of those places where he stopped was a tavern in Medford, belonging to Isaac Hall, the captain of the local militia. It was there that Revere had a Rum Toddy, made from sugar, rum, and hot water, heated by plunging a red hot poker into the tankard.
Today rum is produced in over 50 countries world wide, with the Bacardi company of Puerto Rico being the number one producer in the world. Number two is Tanduay Rum of the Phillipines, and followed by McDowell’s of India at number three. Regional variations of rum also abound. Rums from English speaking islands tend to be darker, such as Myer’s Dark and Mount Gay, with a very strong molasses flavor.
The French speaking islands make their rums from pure sugar cane juice rather than molasses, a variety they call Rhum Agricole, translated means Agricultural Rum. They are much lighter and sweeter than the English style of rum.
Spanish speaking islands traditionally make a style of rum called añejo, meaning old style. These are the rums that most Americans are familiar with, like as Bacardi. These are the styles of rum you will find in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. These rums have a smooth taste and are best when used in the mixing of cocktails.
The newest trend in rum is spiced rums, and the most famous of which is Captain Morgan, the world’s fastest growing name brand of rum. Spiced rums can have cinnamon, vanilla, rosemary, pepper, all spice, nutmeg- really anything, and they usually have caramel flavoring and color added as well.
One more story related to rum in the United States; even after the American Revolution was over, despite the fact that the United States lost a large percentage of its molasses importation from the British West Indies, rum production in New England continued, even into the 20th Century. On January 15th, 1919, in the North End of Boston, at the Purity Distilling Company, at about 12:30 in the afternoon, a storage tank holding over 2.3 million gallons of molasses waiting to be distilled into rum, collapsed. Witness said that the popping of the rivets from the tank sounded like a machine gun going off as it split open, and a 25 foot high wave of molasses cascaded through the streets of Boston at a top speed of 35 miles per hour, it covered nearly a square kilometer of the city.
The mass of the thick sticky molasses damaged girders of the elevated rail line, knocked buildings off of their foundations, with 150 injured, and 21 killed along with several horses, most of which were crushed by the weight or drowned in the morass of the molasses tsunami. The cleanup took weeks to accomplish, with over 87,000 man hours of labor required. Saltwater from the bay was pumped up to wash away the molasses. Boston Harbor was brown from the molasses until the summer, and it is said that every bit of ground and surviving building oozed with the stickiness of the molasses for years, and to this day it is said that you can still smell the aroma of molasses in the basements of many of the buildings that survived. Some say it smells like Myers Dark Rum.
Allen Tatman: Producer, Writer, Narrator
Brian McGeorge: Technical Director
Hishtory Podcast recorded at Rivers Edge Studios and Paddy Malone’s Irish Pub
A Wylde Irish Production, LLC All Rights Reserved
Works Cited:
Abbott, Elizabeth. Sugar: A Bittersweet History. Duckworth, London, 2008.
Foss, Richard. Rum: A Global History. Reaktion Books, London, 2012
Hopkins, Amy. “Top 10 Moments in Rum History.” The Spirits Business. November 19, 2014.
http://www.thespiritsbusiness.com/2014/11/top-10-moments-in-rum-history-2/
Horton, Mark. “A History of Sugar: The Food Nobody Needs But Everyone Craves.” Ancient Origins. November 1, 2015. http://www.ancient-origins.net/history/history-sugar-food-nobody-needs-everyone-craves-004406?nopaging=1
“How Sugar is Refined: The Basic Story.” Sugar Knowledge InternationalOnline.
http://www.sucrose.com/lref.html
Jabr, Ferris. “The Science of the Great Molasses Flood.” Scientific American. August 1, 2013
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/molasses-flood-physics-science/
Lieberman, Daniel E. “Evolution’s Sweet Tooth.” New York Times. June 5th, 2012
Paskin, Becky. “The World’s 10 Largest Rum Brands.” The Spirits Business. June 24th, 2013
http://www.thespiritsbusiness.com/2013/06/the-worlds-10-largest-rum-brands/8/
Standage, Tom. A History of Civilization in Six Glasses. New York, Walker & Company, 2005