46 Fun Facts About Rum

Sailor Jerry spiced rum is named after Norman Collins, who was famous in Honolulu as what?

Tattoo artist Norman Collins died in 1973, and in 1999 his protégés Ed Hardy and Mike Malone did a deal that put his name and designs on clothing and rum.

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

The Caribbean's sugar plantations gave rise to modern rum, which spread to colonial North America and became the main liquor distilled there.

A description of Barbados from about 1651 names a liquor 'Rumbullion, alias' what?

Kill-Divil, the writer added, was 'a hot, hellish, and terrible liquor', and the word rum is apparently a shortening of rumbullion.

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

Trafalgar killed Nelson, and sailors were said to have secretly tapped the cask carrying his body home, though it probably held another spirit, not rum.

Demerara rum, the rich style behind the El Dorado brand, comes from which South American country?

Guyana once had hundreds of estate distilleries; as they closed, their old stills moved to the lone survivor, Diamond, so their rum styles lived on.

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

Edward Vernon's order blamed neat rum, drunk in one go, for ruining sailors' health and morals; his nickname Old Grog, from a grogram cloak, supposedly named the drink.

How did some Royal Navy crews mark Black Tot Day, the 1970 end of the daily rum ration?

Mock funerals, with coffins and black armbands, marked the end after the Admiralty judged a midday tot unsafe for sailors operating complex weapons systems.

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

New Zealand's naval chief ended the tot, ruling that a daily issue of strong spirit had no place in a modern, high-technology service.

Which Royal Navy order, given only by a royal or the Admiralty Board, still brings a tot of rum?

Splice the mainbrace was once the order for a gruelling repair to a ship's main rigging line, and the seamen who did it were rewarded with extra rum.

Before hydrometers, sailors checked their rum wasn't watered down by pouring it on what and setting it alight?

Gunpowder soaked in watered-down rum would not burn, so spirit just strong enough to light it became the benchmark later called '100 proof'.

What did Royal Navy sailors who chose not to draw their daily rum ration receive instead?

A cash allowance was set in 1850, when a committee alarmed by drunkenness halved the tot and paid sailors who chose to go without.

In Disney's 2003 pirate film The Curse of the Black Pearl, who burns a hidden stash of rum to signal for rescue?

Elizabeth Swann called rum a vile drink that turns respectable men into scoundrels, and her smoke signal soon brought a Royal Navy ship to rescue them.

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

The Molasses Act was largely dodged through smuggling and bribed customs officers; the Sugar Act of 1764 revived it with strict enforcement and fed revolutionary anger.

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.

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

Nutmeg or cinnamon spiced bumbo, which Virginia candidates poured so freely for voters that the practice was called 'swilling the planters with bumbo'.

The Rum Rebellion of 1808 in New South Wales deposed which governor?

William Bligh was overthrown after he arrested the rum trader John Macarthur, who then pressed the corps commander to march on Government House.

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

Liquor ships anchored beyond the US limit, out of the government's reach, while high-powered boats raced their cargo ashore past the Coast Guard.

Which rum cocktail was first mixed at the Soggy Dollar Bar in the British Virgin Islands?

Painkiller is a trademarked name, and when its rum brand made a bar called Painkiller change its name in 2011, bartenders launched a boycott.

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.

The cane spirit cachaça comes from which country?

Brazil's Portuguese rulers banned cachaça and later taxed it heavily, and anger over the tax sparked a revolt around Rio de Janeiro in 1660.

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

The turkey vulture is Jamaica's 'john crow' and 'batty' means backside, so the name mocks a cheap, coarse, illegally made white rum.

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

Esters form from acids that microbes make during fermentation, so Jamaica's funkiest high-ester marks need ferments far longer than lighter rums get.

Under EU rules, which additive may rum contain purely to adjust its colour?

Caramel is the only colouring rum may contain, and because rum cannot be flavoured at all, a spiced version cannot legally be sold as plain rum.

What inspired the famous logo on Bacardí rum bottles?

Bats roosting in the distillery struck Facundo Bacardí's wife, Doña Amalia, as a good omen, and buyers soon called his product El Ron del Murciélago, the bat rum.

Where did the Bacardí company set up its global headquarters in 1965?

Hamilton, Bermuda became the firm's home after Fidel Castro's communist government, set up after the 1959 revolution, forced the family business out of Cuba.

Bacardí's main distillery, nicknamed the 'Cathedral of Rum', stands on which island?

Puerto Rico is US territory, so when Bacardí began distilling there in 1936 after Prohibition it could ship rum to American buyers without paying import duty.

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

Welsh privateer Henry Morgan was shipped to England as a prisoner after sacking Panama in 1671, yet Charles II knighted him and made him Jamaica's deputy governor.

In 2009, which league banned a Captain Morgan plan to donate $10,000 to charity whenever a player struck the brand's pose?

The NFL called it ambush marketing after Philadelphia Eagles tight end Brent Celek raised his knee like the Captain to celebrate a touchdown against the Cowboys.

Which drinks giant bought the Captain Morgan rum brand in 2001?

Diageo sells Captain Morgan everywhere except Jamaica, where the name belongs to an unrelated rum from local distiller J. Wray & Nephew.

Which Barbados rum maker, backed by a surviving deed from 1703, bills itself as the world's oldest rum brand?

Mount Gay took the name of manager Sir John Gay Alleyne, whose leadership made the estate thrive so much that its owners renamed the distillery in his honour.

In 1993, which French drinks company formed a joint venture with the Cuban state to export its flagship rum brand?

Pernod Ricard exports the Cuban rum worldwide, but the US trade embargo keeps it out of American stores, where Bacardí sells a rival rum under the same name.

Which drinks company bought the Appleton Estate rum brand in a 2012 takeover?

Campari bought Appleton's parent company from CL Financial, a conglomerate forced to sell off assets after its 2009 collapse led to a government bailout.

In the Royal Navy slang that named Pusser's Rum, what does calling something 'pusser's' mean?

Official issue is the meaning, because 'pusser' is sailors' slang for the purser, the officer who ran a ship's stores.

Which city is widely credited as the birthplace of the mojito?

Havana's La Bodeguita del Medio displays a signed line in which Hemingway praises its mojito, though his biographers doubt he wrote it or even liked the drink.

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

Mining engineer Jennings Cox is said to have named the drink after Daiquirí, the iron-mining town near Santiago de Cuba where he worked.

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

A grapefruit was added later, but the drink began when Hemingway asked for a daiquiri with no sugar and double the rum, hence the nickname 'Papa Doble'.

What does the name piña colada literally mean?

Strained pineapple refers to the freshly pressed juice, and colada traces back to the Latin colare, to strain, the same root behind the English colander.

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?

Ginger beer can be any brand, but Gosling's US trademark says a drink sold under that name needs its Black Seal rum, and it has sued a rival rum giant over the name.

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

The Cuban independence slogan named the drink, which one sworn account traces to a bar in 1900, when an American serviceman ordered rum with Coca-Cola and others copied him.

A rum from Newfoundland is known by what nickname?

Screech is downed at the 'screech-in', a pub ceremony where visitors to Newfoundland also recite a local saying and kiss a cod.

Which popular brand sold on rum shelves is a rum-based liqueur rather than a true rum?

Malibu is bottled at 21% alcohol, well under the 37.5% minimum that EU law sets for rum, so it is sold as a coconut-flavoured liqueur.

What is the traditional cane spirit made in hundreds of small distilleries across Haiti called?

Clairin is poured in Haitian Vodou ceremonies, and it is said that without the spirit and the religion together, Haiti would never have won its freedom from France.

Which potent tiki cocktail did Don the Beachcomber famously limit to two per customer?

Zombie was rationed for its potency, since the original recipe hides three kinds of rum behind a fruity mix of juices and spices.

The pirate drinking song known as 'Dead Man's Chest' first appeared in which novel?

Treasure Island's song took its 'Dead Man's Chest' from a Virgin Islands name Stevenson found in Charles Kingsley's travel book At Last.

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.