A Quest Part Four
THE ORIGIN OF RUM - A QUEST
PART FOUR: WHAT, WHO, WHERE , WHEN ?
Before going on, let’s define precisely our field of enquiry. We are trying to understand who started commercial production of rum on a large scale. Where it started, and when. I ’ll say that again, for the sake of clarity: commercial production on a large scale.
We are not looking for isolated experiments, chance events, home-made distillation which never crossed the local boundaries and then came to nothing.
We are trying to establish who started the journey of rum, that journey which has continued uninterrupted until today.
It is not easy. For reasons of national and corporate prestige, many claim the right of primogeniture of rum, often basing themselves on sentences taken, out of context, from ancient documents, sources which are often dubious and difficult to verify.
On top of that, very often, rum (i.e., the result of distillation of sugarcane by-products) is mistaken for various alcoholic beverages made from the mere fermentation of those same by-products. At the most, the latter can be considered ancestors of rum.
Fermentation exists in nature, it is a natural, spontaneous process which has been perfected by men for their own ends. It is a comparatively easy process. When America was discovered, in Europe, Asia and Africa fermented beverages, wine, beer, etc., had been widespread for millennia.
Distillation, on the contrary, does not exist in nature, it is an entirely artificial process, devised and realized by man. And it is extremely difficult.
The story of distillation starts with the Arab scientists and alchemists of the IX Century, who used it for studies and research of various kinds, but mainly for making perfumes and alcohol for medicinal use. In the XII Century, it reaches Italy where it is used to distill wine, thus creating a new, wonderful beverage called in Latin aqua vitae, from which derive the Italian acquavite and the French eau de vie, i.e. water of life. “Est consolatio ultima corpor is humani ” (“Last solace of the human body”), Raimond Lull will later write. It spreads then all over Europe, but in limited quantities, quite expensive, intended mainly for doctors and pharmacists. Over the centuries, here and there people start to produce distilled beverages, but a real, large scale production destined for the drinkers’ pleasure consumption starts in Europe only at the beginning of the XVII Century. And there is no reason to think that in the Caribbean it had started any earlier.
Sugar production is widespread on Hispaniola as early as 1520. Shortly afterwards Brazil becomes a great producer of sugar, then other countries followed. From the very beginning, slaves drank an alcoholic beverage made from the fermentation of the by-products of sugar. Therefore, more than a century has elapsed between the beginning of sugar production in the New World and the emergence of rum. It is precisely in this century that the decisive passage from simple fermentation to distillation has taken place.
We have therefore established the What of our quest. In order to try and find out the Who, Where and When we have to turn back to Ligon’s book. But it’s enough for now. Goodbye ‘till the next installment.
- by Mr. Marco Pierini from Tuscany, Italy
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My name is Marco Pierini, I was born 59 years ago in a small town in Tuscany (Italy) where I still live. A long time 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. Through History I have always tried to understand the world and humans. Life brought me to work in tourism, event organization and vocational training. I own and run a small tourist business in my seaside town. A few years ago I discovered rum and it was love at first sight. Now, with my young business partner Francesco Rufini, I run a bar on the beach, La Casa del Rum (The House
of Rum) and we distribute Premium Rums across Tuscany. Most importantly, I have returned back to my initial passion: History. Only this time, it involves the History of Rum. Because rum is not only a great spirit, it’s produced in scores of countries, by thousands of companies, with
an extraordinary variety of production processes, of flavours and spices. It has a terrible and fascinating history, made of slaves and pirates, imperial fleets and revolutions and a long etcetera. And it has a complicated, interesting present too, made of political and commercial wars, of big multinationals that dominate the market, but also of many small and medium-sized enterprises that resist trivialization. It is a world which deserves to be known well so that it
can be appreciated as it deserves. All this I try to cover in my Italian blog on Rum:
www.ilsecolodelrum.it