Rum

In Rum: The Epic Story of the Drink that Conquered the World, author Charles Coulombe takes readers on a journey to rum's origins, from 1492 when Columbus brought sugar cane to the Americas and began a vast colonial enterprise that circled the globe to mid-Seventeenth century Barbados, where a liquor made from distiled sugar cane was called Rumbullion, an English country slang term denoting an uproar. Coulombe follows the path of this new beverage, rum, as it was traded by pirates and sugar cane planters who went to Africa and the Caribbean, and shows the important role that it played in the slave trade when, in the 1500s, triangular trade began taking place between Europeans, Africans, and the Colonies. Rum also explores how this powerful libation became a part of the world's sacramental history (it's used in Voodoo and played a major role in the spread of Catholicism to Africa) and how it helped to sustain an empire' rum was the sustenance that kept the British Navy afloat for 300 years and the daily ration of grog became its tradition until 1970. Fascinating, erudite, and entertaining, this definitive account shows how rum epitomizes the relations of the first world with the third world, and recounts the history of its pivotal role in colonialism and post-colonialism, in war and celebration, in slavery and liberation. From Rumbullion to the modern day Mojito, it is truly the drink that shook the worls. Following the model of Cod, each chapter ends with recipes for rum-based drinks and dishes that are historical in focus. The final chapter explores the differences between the varieties of rum, with an emphasis on the historic reasons for them.