American Rum 27: Demon Rum

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American Rum 27: Demon Rum

We have arrived at the end of my history of rum in early America. But before leaving this fascinating subject, I want to spend one last article on the historic battle cry of the temperance activists: “Demon Rum”. 

To be clear, it was not within the scope of my research to study temperance movements and Prohibition. There is a vast bibliography on the subject, which I have only merely touched upon. All I can say here is that temperance movements saw an alliance of medical science with puritanism, along with two constants of American history: the need to have an enemy, and the desire to impose good by force. They started out preaching temperance, that is, drinking in moderation, but soon became teetotalers, attacking all alcoholic beverages alike, whether distilled or fermented.  But the focus of their propaganda was always rum, or rather, the notorious “Demon Rum”.

Why rum? That is, why did temperance movements hold it against rum in particular? Americans were by this time drinking less and less rum and more and more whiskey, while beer was the  fastest growing fermented beverage. In the 19th century rum consumption continued to drop, until, by the end of the century, rum was drunk only as a traditional remedy for colds, fevers and other illnesses. So why did the temperance movements attack “Demon Rum” rather than whiskey or beer?

Thomas Sovereign in his “The American Temperance Spelling Book” (1839) defines rum as “A spirit distilled from cane juice or molasses” but tellingly adds: “a general term used to denote all kinds of intoxicating drink.” Throughout my research, I have largely relied on a few works and, among them, on Ian William’s book: “Rum. A Social and Sociable History” (2005). About “Demon Rum”, Williams writes: “But it was much more than that. In cartoons, rum loomed as the alien other, invariably with a bottle neatly labeled ‘Rum’, which was convenient for cartoonists short of space. They could have used ‘Gin’, but most Americans didn’t and hadn’t, whereas rum was foreign and had a history. It represented Catholics, subhuman Irish, and similar non-native breeds. At the time when most Americans were drinking whiskey, it was rum that was evoked most frequently. It was more patriotic than attacking whiskey overtly.

The monosyllabic power of its name, which made it a favorite with poets and writers, certainly contributed to all this.

As the author of “An Eulogium on Rum”, published in Boston in 1837, unabashedly declares:

ARISE! Ye pimpled, tippling race arise!

From every town and village tavern come!

Show your red noses, and o’er flowing eyes,

And help you poet chant the praise of Rum!

The cordial drop, the morning dram, I sing,

The mid-day toddy, and the evening sling.

  Hail, mighty Rum! and by this general name

I call each species – Whiskey, Gin or Brandy;

[The kinds are various but effect the same; And so I choose a name that’s short and handy; For reader, know, it takes a deal of time To make a crooked word lie smoot in rhyme].

In a huge number of books, pamphlets, cartoons, newspapers, etc. all through the century the word rum was used as a synonym for alcohol, drunkenness and vice. And to drink rum was considered a habit characteristic of bad citizens, people like native Americans and immigrants, who did not match the traditional republican virtues and ought to be mistrusted.

The best-known phrases include the famous alliteration “Rum, Romanism and Rebellion”, pronounced during the 1884 presidential election campaign by a member of the Republican Party, Rev. Samuel D. Burchard, attacking the Democratic Party as a party of Vice, of Irish Catholic immigrants and of Southern Secessionists: very un-American things all of them. And as late as during Prohibition, the line of ships loaded with alcoholic beverages anchored just outside of American territorial waters waiting for the bootleggers was called Rum Row. Finally, the bootleggers were usually called Rum Runners.

What a sad destiny for the once great American Rum: neglected by drinkers and reduced to maintaining the memory of past glory only in the invective of its enemies!

Sic transit gloria mundi!

-Article written by Marco Pierini- 

My name is Marco Pierini, I was born in 1954 in a little town in Tuscany (Italy) where I still live. I got a degree in Philosophy in Florence and I studied Political Science in Madrid, but my real passion has always been History. Through History I have always tried to know the world. Life brought me to work in tourism, event organization and vocational training. Then I discovered rum. With Francesco Rufini, I founded La Casa del Rum (The House of Rum), that runs a beach bar and selects Premium Rums in Italy, www.lacasadelrum.it

And finally I have returned back to my initial passion: History, but now it is the History of Rum. Because Rum is not only a great distillate, it’s a world. Produced in scores of countries, by thousands of companies, with an extraordinary variety of aromas and flavors; it has a terrible and fascinating history, made of slaves and pirates, imperial fleets and revolutions.

All this I try to cover in this column, in my FB Profile: www.facebook/marco.pierini.3 and in my new Blog: www.therumhistorian.com

I have published a book on Amazon: “AMERICAN RUM - A Short History of Rum in Early America”.