Wayne Curtis
And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails
Crown Publishing Group, 2006
304 pages $20
Review by AMY MULDOON
CALL IT a “People’s History of Rum.” Wayne Curtis’ New-World-through-the-bottom-of-a-glass history is in turns scholarly, funny, and humane as he follows rum through the trials of colonists, planters, slaves, Native Americans, pirates, and soldiers.
While he may romanticize the “can do spirit,” rags-to-riches story of America, it’s clear that story is underpinned by one of exploitation, brutality, war, genocide, slavery, and revolution. It is a major feat that Curtis successfully balances these dire elements against the drink recipes, oddball characters, and tiki-bars that riddle the book.
Reading Rum, it may come as shock to the American reader to learn of the secondary importance of the North American colonies. Barbados was long the wealthiest colony of Britain. The value of sugar exports was greater in 1715 than all the other British colonies combined.
Rum was born of the industrial by-products of refining sugar. Molasses was produced in vast quantities as the run-off from crystallizing sugar. The ratio could be as high as three pounds of molasses for every four of sugar. It was often dumped into the ocean or fed to animals to get rid of it.
By the mid seventeenth century, someone had noticed that molasses ferments, and rum was not too long in suggesting itself. Soon planters were profiting off both ends of sugar production, setting up distilleries yards away from sugar boiling houses. Curtis’ description is both vivid and disgusting, capturing what must have been one of the least sanitary industrial processes of its day.
Who would drink a spirit made from industrial waste whose distinctive flavor came from not cleaning the stills? Luckily, the social situation in the colonies consisted of widespread misery for white settlers who were lured with promises of easy fortunes (or criminals dumped on the shores) and slaves who were in some instances compensated only with rum (which might be bartered for food, or not). Lucky for the destitute, experts abounded who sang the praises of rum, as a tonic, elixir, and even enema.
In reality, rum provided a large number of calories for little money, which sustained many colonists lacking in luck or freedom, but in the long term caused malnutrition and death.
Slaves in the Caribbean colonies were concentrated in huge numbers for the production of sugar and rum. “Slaves made the rum, and rum made the slaves,” notes Curtis. On average there were three slaves to one settler, but some islands like Antigua had a ratio of eight to one. Such high densities increased the likelihood of revolt, which drew the planters to depend much more on the British Navy, blunting their desire for independence.
Rum played a role in the immiseration of another population—Native Americans of North America, whose systematic robbery was lubricated with casks of rum. In trades with Indians, wily traders could increase their investment fourfold by swapping rum for furs. “Rum,” Curtis explains, “was also often consumed during the business at hand, if for no other reason than the Indians asked for it, and the traders—having dispensed with the friendship and good faith part of the transaction—preferred to barter with someone whose power of reasoning was compromised.”
By the 1770’s, 10,000 gallons of rum were being traded to Indians every month. But more than pelts were at stake. Native tribes plied with drink gave up claims on land, as the Cherokees did in besotted negotiations with the British.
Rum’s role in history wasn’t always reactionary. Both producing it and drinking it contributed to the radicalism of the colonists. Taverns were a central feature of colonial society, and the fixing of prices meant all classes rubbed elbows and debated over the punch bowl or pitcher of flip. Taverns were sites of “low grade conflict, where wildly clashing ideas ricocheted around the room…The taverns, in short, offered training in policy and grooming of future leaders.”
Distillers in New England were part of a burgeoning domestic bourgeoisie chafing under British rule. Early clashes between colonists and Britain centered around the trade in molasses, with colonists going to cheaper French sources. This led to the Molasses Act (which Curtis characterizes as “the fifty-five mile per hour speed limit of the era”), then later the Sugar Act, and after their failure to discipline the upstarts, the Stamp Act.
The unfortunate side affect of the Stamp Act (for the King) was that the earlier tariffs only targeted some of the 13 northern colonies; the stamp act united them in opposition, making large-scale rebellion possible. While these facts are well known, Curtis’ depiction cuts through the personalities and mythology associated with the events, even debunking the ride of Paul Revere through a debate over whether he would really have stopped for a drink of rum on the way.
Rum saw its downfall after the Revolution—as Sam Adams campaigned for beer to signify patriotism—and then became the hobbyhorse of the temperance movement.
Prohibition may not have decreased drinking, but it did change it. Now women mixed with men, and Cuba became a central destination for the hip crowd. Curtis details the disturbingly symbiotic relationship between the army and Coke, as U.S. imperialism roped in the Caribbean after the Second World War. A particularly horrible aspect of U.S. presence was celebrated in the song “Rum and Coca-Cola” which describes how local women turned to prostituting themselves: “both mother and daughter/workin’ for the Yankee dollar.”
In the final chapter of Rum, Curtis shows how rum is a truly American drink, as rum producers like Bacardi lobby for trade restrictions and trademark protection, giving large sums to the likes of Tom DeLay. Alcohol production has undergone a massive growth and centralization, resulting in a tremendous variety produced by a shrinking pool of producers.
Reading Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails is satisfying on many levels. Curtis boils down a lot of history without losing the big picture, and with a not-so-subtle sympathy for the lower classes. Despite the light-hearted item at the heart of the story, Curtis gives a more material history of the New World than many “serious” takes on the same subject.
