50 Fun Facts About Rum

Rum is made by fermenting and distilling which raw materials?

The distillate comes off the still clear, and gets its colour from barrels or caramel.

In which region did modern rum originate in the 17th century?

It was most likely first made by enslaved people on sugar plantations who found that the sugar-refining by-product could be fermented and distilled.

A 1651 document from Barbados gives the earliest record of rum, calling it Rumbullion, alias what?

It described the drink as 'a hot, hellish, and terrible liquor', and 'kill-devil' remains one of rum's many nicknames.

'Nelson's blood' is a nickname for rum arising from a legend about the admiral's body after which battle?

Sailors supposedly drilled into the cask of spirits preserving his corpse and drank it dry; the official record says only 'refined spirits'.

The Royal Navy's association with rum began in 1655 when its fleet captured which island?

With rum available locally, sailors' daily liquor ration switched away from the spirit of France.

Which admiral ordered the Navy's rum ration watered down in 1740, creating grog?

The name is thought to come from the grogram cloak he wore in rough weather; his order mixed half a pint of rum with a quart of water.

On what date did the Royal Navy issue its last daily rum ration, remembered as Black Tot Day?

The Admiralty had decided the tot was no longer compatible with running sophisticated equipment.

Which country's naval force was the last in the world to give sailors a free daily tot of rum, ending in 1990?

Canada still issues rum on special occasions from the commanding officer's fund, at a hefty 150 proof.

What order, which may only be given by a royal or the admiralty board, still triggers a tot of rum on special occasions?

In the days of daily rations it meant double rum all round.

'Navy strength' spirits are bottled at what alcohol level, the original proof of naval rum?

That was the only strength testable by the gunpowder test before the hydrometer; in 1866 the Navy fixed its issue at 54.6%.

Sailors who declined their rum were marked 'T' in the ship's books and given how much money instead?

Under-20s were marked 'UA' and got no rum; tot glasses were washed only on the outside so the residue would 'strengthen' the next one.

By the late 17th century rum had replaced which drink as the exchange alcohol of the triangular trade?

Canoemen and guards on the African side of the trade were now paid in rum.

Where was the first rum distillery in the Thirteen Colonies set up in 1664?

Boston followed three years later, and rum-making became colonial New England's largest and richest industry.

Which 1733 act imposed a prohibitive tax on foreign sugar syrup imported into the Thirteen Colonies?

Rum was about 80% of New England's exports, so the law was largely ignored; strict enforcement of its 1764 successor helped stoke revolution.

Roughly how much rum did the average colonial American drink each year before the Revolution, by one estimate?

That is around 14 litres for every man, woman and child.

Which president insisted on a barrel of Barbados rum at his 1789 inauguration?

He was also famous for 'swilling the planters with bumbu', once treating 391 voters with 160 gallons of rum.

Bumbo, the colonial election-day drink of rum, water and sugar, was traditionally spiced with what?

Modern versions add citrus juice and grenadine.

The Rum Rebellion of 1808, Australia's only military coup, deposed which governor?

The former Bounty captain had tried to ban rum as currency; 400 soldiers of the 'Rum Corps' marched on Government House.

During the Prohibition era, what was a 'rum row'?

The limit was three miles until April 1924, then twelve; smaller boats ran the cargo ashore.

Which country strictly prohibited rum production in its colonies for most of its imperial history, to protect its own wine and brandy?

That is why pirates mostly stole Spanish wine and brandy and drank rum back at English island ports.

French-style rhum agricole is distilled from what?

Martinique's version won geographical indication protection in 1997 and must be made in a Creole-configuration column still.

Which country's national cane spirit, cachaça, is the most popular cane spirit in the world thanks to domestic consumption?

Outside its homeland it is used almost entirely in the caipirinha.

'John Crow Batty', a notoriously harsh Jamaican rum, takes its name from slang for which bird's rear end?

It was originally made from the heads and tails stolen from distilleries, and was used for medicine, christenings and warding off spirits.

Historically, Jamaican rum marks were graded by the level of which chemical compounds?

Grades ran from Common Clean up to the pungent 'Continental' marks that Germans bought for blending.

Under EU rules from May 2021, spirits labelled as rum must have a minimum alcohol content of what?

They may be sweetened, but with no more than 20 grams of added sugar per litre.

Founded in Cuba in 1862, which family-owned spirits giant pioneered clear white rum?

Facundo Bacardí Massó pioneered charcoal filtration to create the first clear, light-bodied white rum.

What inspired the bat logo on the world's best-selling white rum?

Facundo's wife Doña Amalia proposed the symbol, seeing it as a sign of family unity, health and good fortune.

Where has the Bacardí family's company been headquartered since 1965?

The family fled Castro's Cuba; the firm's largest distillery is elsewhere in the Caribbean.

The 'Cathedral of Rum', the largest rum distillery in the world, is on which island?

It makes 85% of all the company's rum, with the rest coming from Mexico and India.

Captain Morgan rum is named after a 17th-century privateer of what nationality?

Sir Henry Morgan; the brand was launched by Seagram in 1944 and its spiced rum arrived in the US in 1984.

In 2009, which sports league banned a covert Captain Morgan campaign that paid $10,000 to charity whenever a player struck the brand's pose?

The announcement followed a celebration by Brent Celek of the Philadelphia Eagles.

Which drinks giant has owned the Captain Morgan brand since 2001?

Inside Jamaica, though, an unrelated Captain Morgan is made by J. Wray & Nephew, which holds the local trademark.

Which Barbados producer, with a deed dating to 1703, is the world's oldest commercial rum distillery?

It is named for Sir John Gay Alleyne, the manager who ran it so well the company took his middle name after his death in 1801.

Cuba's state rum brand, born in 1934, formed a 1993 joint venture with which French firm?

A rival version of the brand is made by the exiled Bacardí family and sold in the US, and the two sides have litigated over the name for decades.

Appleton Estate, the island's oldest continuously operating distillery, is owned by J. Wray & Nephew, itself a subsidiary of which Italian drinks company?

Wray & Nephew began life in 1825 as The Shakespeare Tavern in Kingston.

Pusser's Rum, founded nine years after the Navy ended the tot, is named after Royal Navy slang for which officer?

It recreates the original naval blend of five West Indian rums.

Which city is the birthplace of the mojito?

Cubans traditionally use the mint Mentha x villosa, called yerba buena, rather than the stronger spearmint used abroad.

The daiquiri is widely credited to Jennings Cox, an American of what profession working in Cuba in 1898?

Daiquirí is a beach and iron mine near Santiago de Cuba, and the name is of Taíno origin.

The 'papa doble' or Hemingway daiquiri swaps sugar for the juice of half of which fruit?

It also takes two and a half jiggers of white rum, two limes and six drops of maraschino.

What does the name piña colada literally mean?

Legend credits the Puerto Rican pirate Roberto Cofresí with an early version; the modern drink relies on Coco López cream of coconut, patented in 1954.

Which restaurateur claimed to have invented the Mai Tai in 1944 at his Oakland restaurant?

Rival Don the Beachcomber said he had made it first in 1933; the name may come from the Tahitian for 'good'.

A Dark 'n' Stormy is dark rum topped with which mixer?

Gosling Brothers of Bermuda holds a US trademark on the name and insists it be made with its Black Seal rum.

The rum-and-cola highball called the Cuba libre takes its name from what?

Bottled Coca-Cola first reached Cuba from the US in 1900, so the drink cannot predate that.

A liquid identified as rum was found in a tin bottle aboard which famous warship that sank in 1628?

Sugarcane wines are far older still, going back thousands of years in Island Southeast Asia.

A rum from Newfoundland is known by what nickname?

Rum production had been recorded in Portuguese America as early as the 1520s.

Which of these popular 'rums' is actually a rum-based liqueur rather than a true rum?

Austria's Stroh and the Czech beet-sugar spirit Tuzemak also sit on rum shelves without being rum.

Which cane spirit does Haiti produce from fresh cane juice, similar to rhum agricole?

Charanda is Mexico's version of aguardiente, and Trinidad's Puncheon is an overproof unaged rum.

Which German product, a blend of a little real rum with rectified spirit and water, prompted the island to cap ester levels in 1934?

The legal minimum of genuine rum in it was just 5%, and it was undercutting Jamaican exports.

Which of these is NOT one of the listed theories for where the name 'rum' comes from?

The most accepted link is to 'rumbullion' or 'rumbustion', both meaning uproar, which surfaced in English around 1651.

Wray & Nephew overproof rum mixed with which grapefruit soda is called Jamaica's 'unofficial drink'?

The same distiller also makes a light filtered rum, Kingston 62 White, that resembles Bacardi Superior.