Defending Jamaica Rum: The Cousin's Memorandum

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DEFENDING JAMAICA RUM: THE COUSINS’ MEMORANDUM

As our readers may remember, at the end of May I travelled to Copenhagen to attend the first Nordic Rum Fest. (See my article “THE TRAVELLING RUM HISTORIAN - TO COPENHAGEN FOR THE 1° NORDIC RUM FEST in the July issue of Got Rum?).

During the Fest I had the pleasure to attend the Master Class of Alexandre Gabriel and to spend a little time with him talking, of course, about rum. Alexandre was the first to tell me about the “Royal Commission on Whiskey and other Potable Spirits”. 

Back home I surfed the Internet, and quickly found and downloaded it. I was born in a pre-digital era, I am not be able to read properly a long text on the screen of a computer, so I printed out the hundreds of pages of the Minutes of Evidence, the Appendixes and the Final Report and began to leaf through them. I discovered a mine of information about the state of art of the spirits manufacture and business in Great Britain (and more) in 1908.

Everything began with the Islington Prosecutions, a large and complicated judiciary case about the selling of Irish and Scotch whiskey that, according to the prosecution, were not “of the nature, substance, and quality” of Irish and Scotch whiskey. Due to the importance of the matter for both the British economy and the health of the public, the British Parliament appointed a Commission to study the question and recommend a solution.

In the Final Report, we can read: “Our first setting took place on the 2nd March, 1908, since which date we have held 37 sittings for the purpose of taking evidence. At such sittings we examined 116 witnesses and considered various document submitted to us. Since the commencement of the inquiry several of us have visited certain distilleries employed in the manufacture of whiskey in Scotland and Ireland, and also a number of distilleries and warehouses at which brandy is manufactured and dealt with in France.”

I have read only a part of the Commission’s work; most of it was dedicated to Whiskey, but there are also quite a few interesting pages dedicated to rum and other spirits. I will return to the Royal Commission in the future, now I want only to publish the pages referring to Pairault’s attack against Jamaican rum.

As we have seen in my previous article – THE DAWN OF AGRICULTURAL RUM –  in 1903 Pairault made damning assertions about the actual making of rum in Jamaica. As far as I know, at first his attack didn’t cause a stir. 

Later, though, in 1908, it was discussed during the work of the Commission. On Monday, July 20th, 1908, the Commission called as witness Sir Daniel Morris, Imperial Commissioner of Agriculture for the West Indies:

(Question) “Whilst we are on the question of these highly flavoured rums, there is another point I should like to raise. Do you know of a book on the manufacture of rum written by a Frenchman of the name of Mons. Pairault? He appears to have been commissioned by the French Minister for the Colonies to go out to the French Antilles and study the whole question of rum manufacture. … His results are incorporated in a book which is called “Le Rhum et sa Fabrication”, published in 1903. This purports to be a scientific and technical account of the rum industry generally, and the official account of it is backed up by the eminent principal of the Pasteur Institute at Lille, and therefore come with some authority. I would like to draw your attention to a chapter on page 107 on Jamaica rums. He states in the first place that Jamaica produces a considerable quantity of rum which is exported almost entirely to the United States and England, where a good part is converted into whiskey. That is the first statement he makes. Than he goes on to talk about a kind of rum produced in Jamaica with very high flavor and odour,  which he describes as German rum or ‘stynking rum’. These rums, he says, are exported almost exclusively to Hamburg, and on the spot in Jamaica command three or four times the prices of ordinary Jamaica rum. Then he goes on to remark that the intense aroma of these rums is due to the use of certain extracts – the French word he uses is ‘sauces’ – into the composition of which enters skin which has been a little heated or steeped for a short time in tanning pits, and also a small quantity of alcoholic infusion of tobacco. He goes so far as to give the name of the brand of tobacco which is used for the purpose. He further says that the same is true with regard to old rums.  He says it suffices to examine, as he had done, white rum coming from the still to assure oneself that this rum is neither better nor worse than that which one gets in the rum manufactories of St. Pierre, and that this rum in ageing naturally can give neither ‘stynking rum’ not the greater part of the rum sold at a very high price as old rum – inferring that these very old rums are doctored in point of fact. Further, he says at page 119, that the new rums are very good – that is the Jamaica rums – without being superior to a number of the Martinique rums, but those for exportation are often coloured and have extract added to them. All of them recall  absolutely those terrible products to which the name ‘rum’ is applied in France. …

(Answer) “I have never heard of these statements before … I have served in Jamaica for several years. I have visited a large number of estates and know the methods of manufacture, and I have never heard of anything of the kind being utilized in any way. In fact, I should say that the gentleman quoted was more interested in injuring Jamaica rum as opposed to Martinique rum. He seemed to be taking up the position that Jamaica rums could not be better than the rums made in the French Colonies. I have no hesitation in saying that we could produce evidence to place before this Commission that would entirely refute the statements made in the book referred to.”

The matter very nearly caused a diplomatic incident between Great Britain and France and, as is often the case, the dispute drew the attention of the public and for all practical purposes spread Pairault’s opinions, thus seriously damaging the trade of Jamaica rum. At this point an appropriate response from the Jamaica Government was required. The response was entrusted to a famed chemist of the time, Herbert Henry Cousins. On 24th October, 1908, Cousins published a strong Memorandum which I think is worth publishing virtually  verbatim. Here you are.

“This extract contains a series of false statements that are injurious to the trade and commerce of Jamaica. The public attention directed to these statements as a result of the evidence before the Whiskey Commission, in which this extract was cited, has resulted in serious injury to the trade in Jamaican Rum on the Continent. A large firm in Bremen has complained to me that large contracts  do not desire to drink rum flavoured with tobacco and the skins of animals. I will now deal with these false statements seriatim:

(1.) Hardly any Jamaica rum is exported to the United States (0.3 per cent average of the last three years.)

(2.) It is not true that a good part of the Jamaica rum exported to England is made into whiskey. Anyone with a knowledge of the flavor of the two spirits would recognize the absurdity of such a suggestion.

(3.) No rum made in Jamaica is known as ‘stinking rum’. I have a wide knowledge of planters and distillers in Jamaica and never heard the term. It is unknown in commerce and the term made its first literary appearance in the work of M. Pairault.

(4.) We make high-flavoured rums in Jamaica that fetch three to four times the price of ‘common clean’ rum, but it is not true that these rums are almost exclusively exported to Hamburg. As a matter of fact nearly all rums that sell for 4s. a gallon and over are exported to merchants in England, and it is very rare for a rum of ‘three or four times the price of ordinary rum’ to be exported to Hamburg. ….

(5.) The statement that the intense perfume of these rums is due to the soil and the process of distillation is, in effect, quite correct. Certain sugar soils favour peculiar yeasts adherent to the canes and certain bacteria productive of esters and alcohol of high molecular weight which impart the aroma to the rum. … In place of the 30-hour fermentation of diluted molasses, as at Martinique, our Jamaican distillers of high-class rums prepare acid and flavouring materials from the bye-products of the sugar-cane and ferment their wash for periods of 18 to 25 days. ….

(6.) It is absolutely false that these flavours are due to ‘des sauces dans lesquelles entrent la peau un peu échauffée ou ayant subi un court séjour dans les fosses de tannerie’ (some sauces in which enter the hide slightly heated or by having a short stay in a tannery pit). I declare from personal experience as a distiller and as a officer in charge of the investigations on rum in Jamaica that no flavouring are employed other than the specially prepared products of the sugar-cane in the distilleries in Jamaica. … M. Pairault has written without knowledge and made himself responsible for slanders that are absolutely without justification. It is equally absurd and untrue that we use ‘American chewing tobacco’ … M. Pairault’s statement of having knowledge of such procedure is the more remarkable, seeing that he has never seen a high-flavoured rum made in Jamaica and in all probability has never tasted a good sample of high-flavoured Jamaica rum in his life. 

(7.) The white rum coming from the still has the full flavor of the final product. We only add cane-sugar caramel to attain a colour … The flavour of Jamaica rum is mainly due to ethers, and our rum contain more ethers than any other spirit distilled in any other country. These ethers are not derived from tobacco, skins, or orris root, but are produced by careful and elaborate acidic fermentations of sugar-cane products in combination with a main alcohol fermentation. The yeasts and bacteria at work in a Jamaican distillery are unique. …

(8.) I read with some amusement the ridiculous statement of M. Pairault, when his book first appeared. As his ideas were formulated in the shape of a gospel of silent spirit to the distilleries of Martinique. I decided that the interests of Jamaican rum would be best served by ignoring his false charges against Jamaican rum  in gratitude for the good he would do to our trade by encouraging the production of a neutral flavourless rum in Martinique. The publicity given to his fantastic statements owing to the proceedings of the Royal Commission on Whiskey has resulted in serious damage to the trade in Jamaica rums on the Continent. … As the accusations are false, and based upon ignorance, it is clear that some emphatic means of contradicting these slanders is desirable, and I have been instructed to prepare in this memorandum a refutation of M. Pairault’s false charges.”

In 1909, the Final Report of the Royal Commission, we find the end of this story, at least from the point of view of the British and French Governments. 

“It should be added, that, in reply of an unofficial representation addressed to the French Minister of the Foreign Affairs, Your Majesty’s Ambassador at Paris received a Memorandum stating that no trace could be found of any official mission having been entrusted to Monsr. Pairault.” 

This is enough, for now. But it could be very interesting to delve into this ‘affaire’ with the dedication it deserves. Had Pairault been given an official commission to go on his tour in 1902? Maybe he had, but in 1909 the French government chose to pour oil on troubled waters and denied it. And the British government chose to believe it. I don’t know much about that historical period, but France and the United Kingdom had recently formed an alliance – the so-called entente cordiale was signed in 1904 – and both feared the growing power of Germany: there were more important things to worry about. 

I will leave this issue, but by all means not the Royal Commission. I will return to it to tell more interesting things about British spirit manufacture and consumption at the beginning of the XX  Century, and first of all about the so-called “Imitation rum”.

See you next month.

Marco Pierini