For the three plus decades that I have been on this planet I am still fairly ignorant of certain things that perhaps should not have escaped me for this long. Like Rum. Rum, it turns out, is made from molasses, which comes from sugar, and it was invented in the tropics in the 17th century on English sugar plantations in Barbados. I now understand the tropical association with rum. Like I said, I feel I should have been cognizant of this. Too busy trying to be a wine snob, I guess. Anyway, the molasses gets fermented to make rum. According to one scholarly source, plantation masters used to empty their chamber pots into the mix to keep the slaves from drinking it. I'm certain that it worked well if they did and the joke was on the folks back home in England who drank the stuff after it had been through the rest of the process that made it into the drink it was to become. (Source of my new knowledge: Sugar & Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624 - 1713, by Richard S. Dunn, which is one of the best written academic texts I've read-very literary in style-and a pioneering work of social history published in 1972, pointing out, among other things, yet another facet of Western society that depended utterly and completely upon the brutal and immoral practice of slavery.)
This also explains the pirates' association with rum, since pirates were well known in the Caribbean in the 16th and 17th centuries as the English and the French lusted after Spanish gold, Spain being there for a time the world's richest nation due to her infiltration of South and Central America and conquest of the great Mesoamerican empires. Pirates could easily get hold of rum, one assumes, both by nabbing rum cargo and simply by being in the right place for pirate living, such as the infamous hard-drinking town of wanton living, Port Royal of Jamaica, prior to the earthquake of 1692 followed a couple of years later by a fire that ultimately destroyed the town, which shifted things over to Kingston and pretty much ousted the pirates. (Same source as above.)
Rum drinks:
Bahama Mama-equal parts light, gold and dark rum and one part coconut liqueur plus orange juice, pineapple juice and a splash of grenadine garnished with cherry and pineapple wedge plus one of those cool little umbrellas (this sounds so very breakfasty to me...)
Cable Car-spiced rum, orange curacao, fresh lemon juice, stirred over ice (or maybe shaken?) and strained into a cinnamon/sugar rimmed cocktail glass (YES!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Blue Hawaiian-Light Rum, Blue Curacao, Pineapple Juice, Cream of Coconut, ice...mix in blender, strain into highball glass, garnish with cherry and/or pineapple (I do not drink blue anything...too much look like windex)
Hurricane-dark rum, light rum, OJ, passion fruit juice, lime juice, fine powdered sugar, grenadine, mixed and shaken with ice, strained into a glass, garnished with orange slice and/or cherries (would love to try a New Orleans original of this sometime)
Long Island Iced Tea-vodka, gin, triple sec, light rum, tequila, sour mix (many variations of this, served in a tall glass, geez, this would mess me up)
Mojito-spiced rum, mint leaves, sugar, lime juice, soda (good for summer)
Hot Buttered Rum Cocktail-this involves some chef work: cream butter, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt. Keep refrigerated til nearly firm. Then spoon this mixture into serving mugs and pour rum over it to fill these about half full, after which you will cover this with boiling water to fill the mug. (sounds good for winter)
Zombie-Jamaican rum, light rum, orange juice, lime juice, and pineapple juice plus powdered sugar and Bacardi 151 rum; shake everything but the Bacardi and strain into glass, float Bacardi 151 onto it and garnish with cherry or other fruit wedge.
Naturally if you want proportions/ounces, etc, you can use the web to get those. My rum exploration is overdue...so...guess I'll be trying some rum drinks...one at a time, of course! The real test will be finding a bartender in Austin who knows what a Cable Car is (maybe they all do, who knows...). I went to Club DeVille and the bartender there did not know what a Vesper was (James Bond drink from Quantum of Solace). For such a supposedly hipster joint (and surely the stopping place of a few wanna-be pirates heading downstream to the heart of the Red River district), I was disappointed.
