The Sugar (and Rum) Lobby

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The Sugar (and Rum) Lobby 

It is said that one day King George III was riding near Weymouth in the company of William Pitt the Elder, when they came across a magnificent carriage, followed by a retinue of valets on horseback, wearing sumptuous liveries. To the King’s great irritation, the splendor of the carriage, and of its retinue, greatly surpassed his own. When he heard that that marvel belonged to a Jamaican Sugar Baron, the King exclaimed: “Sugar, sugar hey? All THAT sugar? How are the duties, hey, Pitt, how are the duties?”

It is difficult to understand this today, but in the mid-eighteenth century the wealthiest part of the British Empire was the small islands of the Antilles, which produced sugar, not the large North American colonies.

The élite of the West Indies Planters, the Sugar Barons, amassed wealth on a colossal scale. Many went back to live in their mother country and, like all the new rich, they showed off the trappings of their exceptional wealth: sumptuous mansions, precious furniture, jewels, gold, lavish meals, all that money could buy. “As wealthy as a West Indian” became a common phrase.

As always in history, and not just English history, the next step was to achieve the social respectability that only the land could provide, and at the same time political power. They bought large estates with ancient castles, they became local magistrates and members of associations and Guilds. Then they became Members of Parliament.

At first only a few, but gradually more and more of them. It is estimated that in 1765, more than 40 Members of Parliament were “West Indians”.

In Parliament they constituted a real lobby with the primary objective of defending their interests as sugar producers and, as far as we are concerned, as rum producers. They met regularly in some Taverns and Coffee Houses, they had their leaders and their publicists. The “scientific” books and articles in favor of rum that we mentioned in the October issue were promoted and backed up by the lobby. But, as well as influencing public opinion, they took active action to pass laws, bills and regulations which promoted rum consumption.

In the 1750s the corn crops failed several years in a row, causing an increase in the price of bread which, let us remember, was the staple diet of the lower classes. In order to prevent famine and riots, Parliament, pushed by the West Indians’ lobby and supported by the major port cities whose interests lay in overseas trade, forbade the distillation of grain, with which gin, cheap and widespread, was produced. Immediately afterward, in 1760, an Act was passed which greatly lowered the customs duties on rum imports, provided it was produced in the British West Indies. And the lower classes turned to rum.

But the lobby’s masterpiece was the inclusion of rum in the regular food rations received by the sailors and the soldiers of the British Imperial Army and Navy. This brought about lucrative contracts to supply fleets and armies.

Furthermore, the sailors and soldiers who had gotten used to drinking rum over the long years of service wanted to go on drinking it after their release from such service, when they came back to their homes. It is a case of creating from scratch the demand for a new product which dwarfs modern marketing strategies.

In a short time, Rum and the British Navy became inextricably entwined, and the two daily distributions of rum rations on board the ships became a fundamental element of British folklore.

But more of this in the next articles.

-Article written by Marco Pierini-

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My name is Marco Pierini, I was born in 1954 in a little town in Tuscany (Italy) where a 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. And through History I have always tried to know the world, and men. Life brought me to work in tour ism, 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 and distributes 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 articles on the Italian webpage www.bartender.it .