September 2015 "Got Rum?" Magazine
Cachaza
Marco Pierini, The Rum Historian for "Got Rum?" magazine, continues on his quest to discover the origin of rum. In the September 2015 issue he talks about "Cachaza" where he has to go back to Colonial Brazil (1640).
Cachaza
When I began to write “On the Quest Again” to relate the new evidence I had found on the origins of rum, I decided to write 3 articles. They were enough, I thought, to tell the story of vinum adustum in Dutch Brazil around 1640.
But in order to write about Dutch Brazil and rum, I had to deal a little with Colonial Brazil and Cachaza. To be clear: I have not studied the History of Colonial Brazil as it deserves and in the Cachaza world I am an absolute beginner. I have just read a few things. And I discovered that there is a story circulating in the Rum World (the net of websites, books, festivals, experts and aficionados) about the origins of Cachaza, quite different from what I was writing.
Before I continue, I have to say some words about the relation between Cachaza and rum. I am aware of the effor ts of Brazil to defend and promote Cachaza as a national product, with its own characteristics, different from rum. And I think that it makes sense to defend the originality of Cachaza in today’s world market. But in regards to my Quest, Cachaza and rum are the same product: a distilled beverage whose raw material comes from sugarcane.
Coming back to my readings, the story circulating in the Rum World begins in 1532, when the Portuguese started to cultivate sugarcane in Brazil. Some say that the distillation of sugarcane products began almost immediately, others few decades later. Someone adds that the Portuguese learned distillation from the Arabs, others stress that in contemporary documents the word “cagaza” or something like that, can be found. Therefore, the origins of rum would appear to be a hundred years before Macrgraf and Piso’s Dutch Brazil. As often happens, this story is bouncing off from books to websites, from websites to festivals, and the other way around. And for the sheer fact of its diffusion, it is growing in prestige and authority. But its sources are not clear. Some do not quote any sources at all, others quote not clearly identified written documents.
Firstly, there is a great deal of confusion between fermented and distilled beverages. To put it in the simplest terms, fermentation is an easy thing, practiced for thousands of years all over the world. Distillation, on the contrary, is a difficult art. Commercial distillation was not common in Europe before the beginning of 1600, and it is hardly conceivable that in Brazil it should have happened earlier.
Secondly, to predate the origins of rum back to 1500 Brazil, we need reliable sources to document the distillation of sugarcane products. For instance, Historia Naturalis Brasiliae is such a source. No one, as far as I know, quotes trustworthy sources.
Thirdly, if you use a written document as a source you must have read it directly or you have to trust that the author you mention has read it directly. And you have to clearly identify it. If it is a modern printed book, title, author and date of print could be sufficient. But in case of manuscripts or ancient and rare books, the readers need to know in what Library or Archive they are conserved, and the classification numbers.
Fourthly, documents written in the Portuguese language of the XVI Century are not easy to understand, because, like English, Portuguese has changed greatly over these 500 years and the meaning of the words is not always clear to us. For instance, during most of the colonial period, the word “cachaza” was commonly used for the foam of the cauldrons where sugarcane juice boiled, and not for the spirit.
Therefore we have to conclude that the story about the origins of Cachaza in 1500 Brazil is not true or, at least, it is as yet unfounded. If in the future someone will discover new, trustworthy, sources about early distillation, I will be happy to change my opinion and to begin a new Quest. But at the moment I must confirm that the earliest commercial production of rum takes place in Dutch Brazil around 1640.
Or maybe not. Yes, because while reading about Cachaza I did find something that could date back its origins to the first decades of 1600, before the arrival of the Dutch. But this is another story.
-This article is written by Marco Pierini-
My name is Marco Pierini. I own and run a small tourist business in my seaside town in Tuscany, Italy. With my partner Francesco Rufini we founded La Casa del Rum (The House of Rum) that runs a beach bar, distributes Premium Rums and organizes rum seminars and events.
Many years ago, I got a degree in Philosophy in Florence, Italy, and I studied Political Science in Madrid,Spain. But my real passion has always been History and through History I have always tried to know the world, and men.
Then, I discovered rum and I decided to make a profession of it. I realized Rum has a long, terrible and fascinating history, made of planters and slaves, sailors and pirates, imperial fleets and revolutions. Yet, a History still largely unknown. So I decided to join my lifelong passion, History, to my current job, rum, by writing about the History of Rum.
And here I am.
Marco Pierini
Marco@gotrum.com