A Tale of Rum: 1. From Water of Life to Spirits

by ,

                                         A TALE OF RUM

                     1. FROM WATER OF LIFE TO SPIRITS

I have been studying the History of Rum and in particular its Origin for ten years. At the very beginning, I discovered with great surprise that the  History of Spirits in general and of rum in particular is a complex and fascinating issue, but it is rarely, and what’s more, badly, studied  by  scholars and almost unknown to the general public. All along my studies, I think I have achieved interesting results and, forgive my presumption, also made some actual findings. 

Meanwhile, we have seen the birth of a true World of Rum. Rum Festivals and Rum related events  have been born all over the world. The Rum Family was born too, a network of distillers, professionals, experts, bloggers, journalists and aficionados that is alive every day on the Internet and the social media and, before Covid-19, met up at the various events. On the market have arrived many new brands and many premium rums and the attention of both firms and consumers to education and story-telling has grown enormously. Hence, the books, essays, posts, in short the information available about rum has grown too.

Well, I think the time has now come  to briefly summarize all that we know up to this point. For the sake of clarity, this is not new research, with new sources and new discoveries, neither true scholarly history. I’m simply trying to tell the story of rum, from its obscure beginning to its lasting success. A word of warning: I use the general word RUM for all kinds of Spirit made by fermentation and then  distillation of the products of sugar cane. 

The first step toward commercial production and pleasure consumption of Spirits can be found in Salerno, Italy, in the 1100s. As a matter of fact, the earliest sure source about the very existence of alcohol are some instructions for the distilling of wine which appeared in a short introduction to a study of medicine written by a “Master of Salerno” around 1150. Here it is: “A mixture of pure and very strong wines with 3 parts of salt cooked in the usual vessel makes a water, which will flame up when set on fire but leave the material unburnt”. 

So, WATER is the first name given to the newly discovered substance that we now call alcohol. The discovery was probably due to technical development on the issue of making pots and cooling the vapors, enabling the Master of Salerno to separate alcohol from wine. But above all, the social and cultural context made the difference with the past and opened a new road in human experience.  Indeed, probably Alexandrian and Arab scientists had already discovered  alcohol, but they kept it secret, or reserved to a few initiates and it never became a common technique, let alone a commercial production and consumption of Spirit. The well-known Quranic prohibition of consuming alcoholic beverages was not always strictly respected, but it did not promote the creation of a social environment suited to the passage of alcohol from a scientist’s laboratory to a commercial distillery and finally to the tables of a tavern. The very fact that today’s scholars have to look for evidence of Arab alcoholic distillation in ancient, cryptic manuscripts half-forgotten in some ancient library, suggests that commercial production never developed. Otherwise, why didn’t it continue until today and even the memory has been lost? 

In Salerno  things were very different. The Medical School was the first medical school of Western Europe and its medical practitioners were unrivaled; as early as the X century the school was already famous and sick people from all over Europe flocked to Salerno to be cured, and doctors to learn. In this thriving, favorable environment the new substance was not kept secret for long, on the contrary, it was used as a medicine, starting slowly but steadily to be known and used increasingly often. 

As a result of a two centuries-long historical process, in the 1200s Latin Europe emerged definitively from the dark Ages and experienced a real renaissance. The population grew, the cropland increased, the cities flourished and with them craftsmanship and commerce. Additionally, in a close relationship of cause and effect impossible to fully understand, a new culture spread, concrete and experimental, focused on practical things and centered on human beings and their needs. The cities of Central and Northern Italy were one of the centers of this culture, which embraced a new science, Alchemy. Alchemy was a serious matter in the 1200s, openly and amply debated by philosophers and theologians. Interest in the subject should not be identified as a propensity for irrational, secret, morally questionable practices, but as an expression of intellectual openness to a form of knowledge of nature that was not purely theoretical, but took into account the role of human actions in the world and aimed to perfect it. Alchemy fascinated many because it was a practical, experimental branch of knowledge, very different from the abstract, theoretical discussions of many scholastic philosophers of the day. Only later was alchemy classified among the ‘occult sciences’.

Probably, alchemists were the first dedicated distillers. They subjected various substances of plant or animal origin to the action of fire within a closed apparatus to separate the volatile and solid parts. The solid material settled at the bottom, while the vapors separated from it rose up and were conveyed through a pipe. In the pipe they condensed, finally taking the form of a liquid offering the essential properties of the initial substance, bur now in a ‘subtle’ and ‘spiritual’ form, far removed from the heaviness of matter. This procedure evolved rapidly, culminating in the very distillation of wine with the production of alcohol. At the beginning it was called WATER because it is as colorless as water. Alchemists were fascinated by the new product, believing it to be a powerful medicine that could treat and prevent numerous illnesses: practically a panacea. Then apothecaries, doctors and surgeons noted the antiseptic properties of alcohol, its effectiveness in treating wounds and curing many diseases and around 1250 the production and consumption of alcohol as a potent medicine was an established practice in Northern and Central Italy. Moreover, in those years and in those places, the serpentine column began to be largely used to collect the vapors, an innovation with a decisive effect on the quantity and quality of the alcohol. Soon it was called WATER OF LIFE and also BURNING WATER and the two names stuck.

In the second half of the 1200s Taddeo Alderotti,  professor at the University of Bologna and the most famous doctor of his age, published a book, “Consilia” (Pieces of Advice), which was a great success for many years and gave rise to a true genre of medical writing. The last seven pieces of Advice were all dedicated to water of life, which he also refers to as burning water. Taddeo was clearly impressed by  alcohol because it truly worked, in contrast to most of the drugs of the age. 

Here is an excerpt: “These are the virtues of water of life: first of all, it treats and eliminates, from inside or outside, all forms of bodily suffering proceeding from cold humors. From the inside, by drinking a certain quantity of it, or when applied on the outside. The quantity of the beverage to be taken is the amount that may be contained in a hazelnut shell, with a glass of good white wine. The same quantity may be applied externally. If you add spices or herbs, mince them in this quantity, and in two hours it will take on their flavor and virtues. And then it is highly effective against cold drops from the eyes, applying a little to the outside of the eyes, or putting a drop in the corner of the eye.” 

A long list of illnesses that may be treated with alcohol follows. Finally, water of life  preserves the vigor of youth and prevents aging, including white hair ( human desires have not changed much since 1280!). Lastly, it not only treats ailments of the body, but of the soul too: “Against melancholy and sadness, half a spoonful every morning, on an empty stomach, taken with a glass of fragrant wine, will cheer and make you merry and playful”.

Taddeo Alderotti and his prestige played a decisive role in making the general public of cultivated readers of the day aware of water of life. He was the first great propagandist of  alcohol and also very much aware of how much it could yield in  economic terms. Taddeo and other physicians of the day recommended rubbing water of life on ill or aching parts of the body, and above all drinking it. They suggested consuming it both pure and mixed with spices and medicines, which often improved its flavor. They clearly prescribed drinking it regularly to treat numerous illnesses, but they also suggested drinking it when healthy, to prevent illness, keep the body healthy and slow down the process of aging. This was a crucial suggestion: people began to drink it regularly, without necessarily being ill and therefore consumption grew significantly. A new form of consumption appeared on the market, which could no longer be satisfied by the small and expensive quantities of alcohol usually produced with so much time and so much trouble by physicians and alchemists. The supply could satisfy the new demand of the consumers only if a true commercial undertaking started producing the required quantity at a reasonable price. 

It happened first in the city of Modena, not far from Bologna. There, evidence confirms that around the year 1300 a new enterprise started, able to produce significant quantities of alcohol making it into a commercial product to be sold on the home market and also exported abroad, first of all to Germany. The trade of alcohol was so important that local authorities put taxes on it. As far as I know, it was the first ever commercial production of alcohol. And yet, all this cannot be surprising. Distillation is a difficult art, it requires both complex reasoning and remarkable craftsmanship. It is only normal that this new, sophisticated craft was born in Northern Italy, at the time the richest and most developed, in short the most modern part  of the West. 

Then, the distillation of wine became common throughout Europe. Later in the 1300s, in the Nordic countries, where grapevines would not grow and wine had to be imported and was therefore expensive, someone began to distill alcohol from malted grains. But while water of life had become a well-known and widely used product it was still sold and consumed above all for medicinal purposes. When and how did water of life come to be drunk for pleasure, not as medication? When and how did it leave the pharmacy and enter the tavern, becoming not anymore WATER OF LIFE, but a true SPIRIT?

We do not know exactly, but it happened during the course of the 1300s. At the beginning of the century, the use of sweetened alcoholic beverages called ‘liqueurs’, consisting of alcohol, sugar or syrup and some flavoring substance, spread from Italy. The secrets of their manufacture were brought to Paris by Italian distillers in 1332. The most beloved liqueur which the Italians took to France was rose-oil, a liqueur which smelt of  roses. There is no doubt that at this point  water of life, which we can now call SPIRIT, was consumed by all social classes and its spread can be gleaned from the regulations cropping up from time to time, for instance in Frankfurt, where we find regulations as early as 1361 which intend to cope with the spread of drunkenness and unruly behavior of intoxicated burghers. Fear made a significant contribution to the spread of the practice of Spirits. The Black Death made its appearance in 1348: one of the greatest pestilences in European history, the disease killed about a third of the continent’s population, and other lesser but still terrible epidemics continued to strike all over Europe in the centuries that followed. Physicians were practically powerless, and recommended that the terrified population  drink aqua vitae every day not only to treat but to prevent the Plague. And many people continued to drink it after the Black Death was gone. At the end of the 1300s Spirits were drunk all over Europe.

Half a century later, Michele Savonarola (grandfather of the more famous and ill-fated Friar Girolamo)  was Court Physician in Ferrara (Italy). Between 1444 and 1449 he wrote a little, great, virtually forgotten book: “Booklet of Burning Water”. As far as I know, it is the first treatise entirely dedicated to alcohol, which he calls burning water. 

Savonarola describes a pot still, sealed with lute and a coil to cool the vapors with plenty of water: “For this reason, those who produce burning water in large quantities seek places with running water”. He even speaks against the use of lead because it is harmful to health. He goes on to deal with different types of wine suitable to make good alcohol. We need new wines, good and strong, therefore expensive; on the contrary, he laments that unfortunately all too often, in order to make more profit, many wine producers distill poor wines, wines gone bad or watered down, and consequently produce low quality alcohol, heedless of the damage it will cause to the health of the consumers. Savonarola then goes on to describe the technical complexity necessary to make good alcohol: “And yet, think and reflect on how the water which is sold in the square to poor, miserable people is made instead.” The production was not in the hands of physicians and apothecaries anymore, but belonged to real entrepreneurs operating in a market with different levels of quality and also unfair commercial practices and adulteration. 

To sum up, in the first half of 1400s, at least in Italy, a veritable commercial production and a widespread pleasure consumption of SPIRITS already existed. Shortly after, with the help of the printing press, works dedicated to alcoholic distillation sprang up everywhere, and the consumption of many kinds of Spirits spread throughout all Europe. 

Among these Spirits, was Rum to be found yet? I don’t think so, as we are going to find out in the next article.

Marco Pierini