American Rum: A Short History of Rum in Early America

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My name is Marco Pierini, The Rum Historian.

My field of research is the history of rum, and in particular its origins. The results of this research can be found in “Got Rum?” magazine, and in some websites about rum.

Many articles are about Great Britain and the British Empire, owing to the early, massive diffusion of rum among British people. The very word Rum is generally held to be English, although its origins are uncertain, and I freely admit that, after the long research carried out in order to write this book, my uncertainties have even increased.

Anyway, even as I used to be studying the history of British rum, I came to realize with astonishment that rum had had an enormous importance in Early America. More, the very birth of the new American Republic was dripping in rum.

As a matter of fact, colonials drank a lot, and they drank mainly rum. Rum was not only a very popular commodity, but a lubricant of social life. In early America, taverns were the focal point of political and social life and what most of the people drank in taverns was rum. Moreover, rum was present in all the rituals which mark life: births, weddings, all kinds of festivals and celebrations, funerals.

I already knew that American colonists imported great quantities of rum from the West Indies, but I discovered that they became also great producers of it.

In the Continental Colonies, rum was so important that, as money was at all times scarce, rum frequently replaced it as currency and the real indicator of the value of goods. Rum is also generally thought to have played a pivotal role in the infamous slave trade and in the subjugation and destruction of American Indians.

Above all, sugar, molasses and rum are largely considered among the real reasons of the rebellion of the American colonists against their Homeland. Therefore it is not without a reason that it has frequently been written that rum is the real Spirit of 1776.

All this kindled my interest in the role that rum played in the birth of the United States. At the same time, I had become aware that something extremely interesting was happening in the US around rum.

First of all, for some years rum had been produced again in the US, after a long period of neglect. There were already hundreds of rum distilleries in the US. They were frequently small craft enterprises, with a strong territorial bond, which frequently used locally grown sugar cane. New ones were starting, month after month. Each of them produced small quantities, but all together they already represented a considerable, and ever growing, proportion of rum consumption in the US. It was also evident that there was a substantial growth in the sales of quality rums, with higher prices, the so called Premium Sector, and I think the two things are connected.

This in itself is of great interest to the rum enthusiast. But as a historian I am in reality impressed also by the political demands of many of these small producers. To put it simply, and I apologize to them and to the readers for this oversimplification, American small producers of rum are coming up against the great multinationals and asking for lower taxation and greater freedom of enterprise. Their pressure is growing, and all these trends are increasing day by day.

In short, prompted by the importance that rum had in the past, and the renewed importance it has in the present, I became convinced that the history of rum in early America, from the first settlers until the decline of rum and the surge of whiskey around 1830, deserved a book. So, I determined to write that book.

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