50 free Rum trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This rum trivia quiz covers the spirit distilled from sugarcane, from the 'hot, hellish and terrible liquor' first recorded on Barbados in 1651 to the aged sipping rums and tiki cocktails of today. The easy questions handle the basics: what rum is made from, where it was born, the meaning of Nelson's blood, the Cuban home of the mojito and daiquiri, the ginger-beer highball from Bermuda and the bat on the Bacardi bottle. From there it moves through the Royal Navy's daily tot, Admiral Vernon's grog, Black Tot Day, the triangular trade and the New England distilleries that helped spark a revolution. The harder half is for spirits fans and pub-quiz regulars: rhum agricole and cachaça, Jamaican ester marks and John Crow Batty, the Molasses Act, the Rum Rebellion that toppled William Bligh, the world's oldest rum distillery, the largest one, Havana Club's tangled ownership, the NFL's ban on the Captain Morgan pose, and the EU's 2021 rules on what may be labelled rum. If you enjoyed our whisky, gin or cocktail quizzes, this is the deep dive on the sailor's spirit. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries for rum, its major brands, naval traditions and cocktails before publishing.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Rum is made by fermenting and distilling which raw materials?
Sugarcane molasses or juice
The distillate comes off the still clear, and gets its colour from barrels or caramel.
Q 02In which region did modern rum originate in the 17th century?
The Caribbean
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.
Q 03A 1651 document from Barbados gives the earliest record of rum, calling it Rumbullion, alias what?
Kill-Divil
It described the drink as 'a hot, hellish, and terrible liquor', and 'kill-devil' remains one of rum's many nicknames.
Q 04'Nelson's blood' is a nickname for rum arising from a legend about the admiral's body after which battle?
Trafalgar
Sailors supposedly drilled into the cask of spirits preserving his corpse and drank it dry; the official record says only 'refined spirits'.
Q 05The Royal Navy's association with rum began in 1655 when its fleet captured which island?
Jamaica
With rum available locally, sailors' daily liquor ration switched away from the spirit of France.
Q 06Which admiral ordered the Navy's rum ration watered down in 1740, creating grog?
Edward Vernon
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.
Q 07On what date did the Royal Navy issue its last daily rum ration, remembered as Black Tot Day?
31 July 1970
The Admiralty had decided the tot was no longer compatible with running sophisticated equipment.
Q 08Which country's naval force was the last in the world to give sailors a free daily tot of rum, ending in 1990?
New Zealand
Canada still issues rum on special occasions from the commanding officer's fund, at a hefty 150 proof.
Q 09What order, which may only be given by a royal or the admiralty board, still triggers a tot of rum on special occasions?
Splice the mainbrace
In the days of daily rations it meant double rum all round.
Q 10'Navy strength' spirits are bottled at what alcohol level, the original proof of naval rum?
57% ABV
That was the only strength testable by the gunpowder test before the hydrometer; in 1866 the Navy fixed its issue at 54.6%.
Q 11Sailors who declined their rum were marked 'T' in the ship's books and given how much money instead?
Threepence a day
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.
Q 12By the late 17th century rum had replaced which drink as the exchange alcohol of the triangular trade?
French brandy
Canoemen and guards on the African side of the trade were now paid in rum.
Q 13Where was the first rum distillery in the Thirteen Colonies set up in 1664?
Staten Island, New York
Q 21French-style rhum agricole is distilled from what?
Fresh sugarcane juice
Martinique's version won geographical indication protection in 1997 and must be made in a Creole-configuration column still.
Q 22Which country's national cane spirit, cachaça, is the most popular cane spirit in the world thanks to domestic consumption?
Brazil
Outside its homeland it is used almost entirely in the caipirinha.
Q 23'John Crow Batty', a notoriously harsh Jamaican rum, takes its name from slang for which bird's rear end?
The turkey vulture
It was originally made from the heads and tails stolen from distilleries, and was used for medicine, christenings and warding off spirits.
Boston followed three years later, and rum-making became colonial New England's largest and richest industry.
Q 14Which 1733 act imposed a prohibitive tax on foreign sugar syrup imported into the Thirteen Colonies?
The Molasses Act
Rum was about 80% of New England's exports, so the law was largely ignored; strict enforcement of its 1764 successor helped stoke revolution.
Q 15Roughly how much rum did the average colonial American drink each year before the Revolution, by one estimate?
Three gallons
That is around 14 litres for every man, woman and child.
Q 16Which president insisted on a barrel of Barbados rum at his 1789 inauguration?
George Washington
He was also famous for 'swilling the planters with bumbu', once treating 391 voters with 160 gallons of rum.
Q 17Bumbo, the colonial election-day drink of rum, water and sugar, was traditionally spiced with what?
Nutmeg or cinnamon
Modern versions add citrus juice and grenadine.
Q 18The Rum Rebellion of 1808, Australia's only military coup, deposed which governor?
William Bligh
The former Bounty captain had tried to ban rum as currency; 400 soldiers of the 'Rum Corps' marched on Government House.
Q 19During the Prohibition era, what was a 'rum row'?
Liquor ships anchored beyond the US limit
The limit was three miles until April 1924, then twelve; smaller boats ran the cargo ashore.
Q 20Which country strictly prohibited rum production in its colonies for most of its imperial history, to protect its own wine and brandy?
Spain
That is why pirates mostly stole Spanish wine and brandy and drank rum back at English island ports.
Q 24Historically, Jamaican rum marks were graded by the level of which chemical compounds?
Esters
Grades ran from Common Clean up to the pungent 'Continental' marks that Germans bought for blending.
Q 25Under EU rules from May 2021, spirits labelled as rum must have a minimum alcohol content of what?
37.5% ABV
They may be sweetened, but with no more than 20 grams of added sugar per litre.
Q 26Founded in Cuba in 1862, which family-owned spirits giant pioneered clear white rum?
Bacardi
Facundo Bacardí Massó pioneered charcoal filtration to create the first clear, light-bodied white rum.
Q 27What inspired the bat logo on the world's best-selling white rum?
Fruit bats living in the rafters of the first distillery
Facundo's wife Doña Amalia proposed the symbol, seeing it as a sign of family unity, health and good fortune.
Q 28Where has the Bacardí family's company been headquartered since 1965?
Hamilton, Bermuda
The family fled Castro's Cuba; the firm's largest distillery is elsewhere in the Caribbean.
Q 29The 'Cathedral of Rum', the largest rum distillery in the world, is on which island?
Puerto Rico
It makes 85% of all the company's rum, with the rest coming from Mexico and India.
Q 30Captain Morgan rum is named after a 17th-century privateer of what nationality?
Welsh
Sir Henry Morgan; the brand was launched by Seagram in 1944 and its spiced rum arrived in the US in 1984.