K. Kris Hirst, “The History of Distilling,” http://archaeology.about.com/od/foodsoftheancientpast/fr/smith06.htm The Portuguese had produced sugar in Brazil for over a century before the English settled Barbados in 1627. Those planters in Brazil also produced a distilled drink from cane, agua ardente, but it probably was something closer to cachaca or vodka than to rum, and in particular the amber and darker rums produced by the English in the Caribbean. As Richard Dunn notes, they “were apparently the first sugar makers to discover how to distill molasses and other sugar by-products into a potent alcoholic drink with a sweetly burnished taste.” (Dunn 196) The nose is wonderfully spicy, with clove and orange zest at the front. Orange, clove, caramel, and various other spices on the tongue. Good sweet and spicy finish. It is unclear when the various alcohol distillates made their individual debuts; brandy probably first, in England, France or Italy; vodka and whisky later, in the Slavic and Celtic realms, but dates unknown. Some commentators (it would be unfair to scholars to identify them as such) hazily trace ‘evidence’ of alcohol distillation to the twelfth century and one writer states unequivocally, if without citation, that it “was invented in England in the 13 th century.” (Hirst) That does not mean, however, that distilled alcohol was much in evidence until much later. The same writer who traces distillation as a technique to the thirteenth century contends that “early in the 16 th century, distilled spirits were not widely available anywhere.” (Hirst) Spiced Rum’s that are suitable for sipping are few and far between. Sipping Rumbullion! is a very, very spicy experience. I have no doubt that this Spiced Rum has been produced from more authentic spices and flavourings than many commercially available Spiced Rums. Synthetic vanilla essence is miles away from this rums taste. It is very much like a very spicy orange drink – almost mulled in many ways. Spiced Ginger Orange is how it tastes. Cardamon is also present giving a slight “Indian Cuisine” type curried note. Despite all this, taken neat Rumbullion! does reveal the youthfulness of its base rum. There’s quite a lot of alcohol burn as well as intense spicing. I wouldn’t choose to drink this neat, maybe over ice at a push. The extra ABV in comparison to other Spiced Rums is very evident. Perhaps too much for a sipper.

It would be unfair to continue piling on, but worst of all Broom does not even include in his international directory of rums the Editor’s three favorites: Coruba, Pampero Anniversario and Westerhall. There are a number of small mysteries about the introduction of sugar culture to Barbados, but the main outline of the story is clear enough.” Arawaks who accompanied the English had planted cane on the island during the first year of settlement, but neither they nor the English knew how to make sugar and in any event the plants failed to flourish. (Dunn 61) Early cultivation of tobacco and cotton on Barbados produced indifferent results: By 1640 its enterprising and ambitious inhabitants had determined that the island needed a new crop. (Dunn 61; No Peace) For me I appreciate the authentic flavour of the spicings used but I have found myself only really able to mix this and when I do that I find the Cinnamon a little off putting. I think this is actually a pretty decent Spiced Rum but like Chairman’s Reserve Spiced it is perhaps just not to my own personal tastes. Fortunately it has quite a lot going on in the mix so unlike the Chairman’s it doesn’t dominate and take over the drink. No lesser light than Ferdinand Braudel takes a more cautious approach. He states that alcohol per se “was possibly discovered in about 1100, in southern Italy” and adds that the first distillation, probably of wine to make brandy or aqua vitae, “had been attributed (probably wrongly) to Raymond Lull who died in 1315, or to a curious itinerant doctor, Arnaud de Villenueve,” who died in 1313. (Braudel 241) so strong a Spirit, as a candle being brought to a neer distance, to the bung of a Hogshead or Butt, where itt is kept, the Spirits will flie to it, and taking hold of it, bring the fire down to the vessel, and set all a fire, which immediately breakse the vessel, and becomes a flame, burning all about it that is combustible matter.” (Ligon 93)

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A blend of the very finest high proof Caribbean rum, to which was added creamy Madagascan vanilla and a generous helping of zesty orange peel. A secret recipe was followed, and the Professor finished his hearty tipple with a handful of cinnamon and cloves and just a hint of cardamom.”

There are instructions to make rum drinks and a few recipes that are either inadequately explained or painfully obvious. Bridenbaugh dates the development of the sugar culture on Barbados, as well as the expansion of sugar trading, a little later than the sequence outlined by Dunn and adopted here. Both studies of the English in the Caribbean are superb, and without recourse to a raft of primary sources, our choice must be considered arbitrary.They settled on sugar, and at some point or points during 1640 and 1641 several of them made the journey to Pernambuco in Brazil to learn from the Portuguese how to make it. They were fast studies. By 1643 Thomas Robinson could write that Bardados “is growne the most flourishing Island in all those American parts, and I verily believe in all the world for the producing of sugar…. ” (Dunn 61, 61n37) In the glass (its impossible to see the rum in the bottle) the rum pours a very vivid reddish brown. The nose is very strong with wafts of orange zest – almost marmalade like. Vanilla is also present but is not the dominant note. Mixed Peel and a little Ginger and Cinnamon are also present. The LIVE virtual tastings are carried out in the last week of the month. Please keep an eye on our socials for confirmed dates! At the core of this fabulous winter warmer lies a blend of the very finest high proof Caribbean rum, to which was added creamy Madagascan vanilla and a generous helping of zesty orange peel. A secret recipe was followed, finished with a handful of cassia and cloves and just a hint of cardamom.

In strength if not in flavor, seventeenth century rumbullion probably resembled the ‘overproofs’ of as much as seventy-five percent or more alcohol available today. A seventeenth century Barbadian statute “stipulated that any rum that would not take fire from a flame without being heated had to be thrown away or the maker would be fined L100,” a considerable sum. ( No Peace 297) As to fashion, “[i]n the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, no one had a good word to say about the West Indies,” Barbados not excepted. It was not just the denizens of the Barbadian underclass that the English despised; the privileged classes envied and snubbed the sugar barons as parvenus, the kind of people who, to plagiarize Alan Clarke on Michael Heseltine, had to buy their own furniture.

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I do enjoy spiced rum at times, and I'm awarding this one a 9 in my "spiced" rum category, as its the best I've ever tried thus far. Its actually head-and-shoulders any spiced rum I've ever encountered. I'll hold the coveted "10" in reserve, in case I ever find a spiced rum that trumps this exceptionally fine spirit some day. Rumbullion! has been so popular with Master of Malt punters that it is also now available in an XO (15 year old) and Navy Strength variation. This review focuses on the “traditional” standard Rumbullion.

A thriving post-Annales school of historiography has developed. Practitioners like David Abulafia at Cambridge University emphasize the primacy of human will and structures both physical and political on historical phenomena. Human enterprise, whether the choice of crops to plant or goods to trade, is more important in this view than the natural world that Braudel considers paramount. Nose: A fabulously decadent nose of intense, sweet vanilla and flamed orange zest. The cardamom makes itself known by offering up an evocative suggestion of old-fashioned cola, and to this the cloves bring out a deep, dark complexity. Yet more sweetness with cinnamon, which melds beautifully with essential oil notes of Seville orange peel. Whenever it first appeared, however, brandy “only broke away from doctors and apothecaries very slowly.” (Braudel 243) Customs records identify brandy merchants at Colmar in 1506, but not in Venice until 1596; its appearance in other sixteenth century locations remains conjectural, and after sifting the evidence Braudel admits “that we are still no nearer to the answer to the problem: when did distilling begin?” (Braudel 243, 248) In any event he considers distilled alcohol a “great innovation” and in his judgment “[t]he sixteenth century created it; the seventeenth century consolidated it; the eighteenth century popularized it.” (Braudel 241) For those left on the island, fortune meant sugar, and the product was a harsh mistress. Transplanting the sugar culture from Brazil to Barbados was “complicated and costly.” ( No Peace 76) Once the industry did reach the island, its requirements in a preindustrial world were forbidding. “That the work of managing a sugar plantation demanded all of the time, intelligence, and energy of the owner must be immediately recognized.” ( No Peace 92) Evidence from the reliable Ligon bears out the notion of extreme alcoholic strength. He reported that Barbadian rum wasBroom also describes seventeenth century Barbados as “an almost mythical place, a fantastical, fertile island where fortunes could be made with virtually no effort. It soon became painfully fashionable.” (Broom 92) Visitors to Barbados did find the place ‘fantastical,’ but not in a way that Broom implies, and its was a fertile environment, particularly for the cultivation of cane, at least until the planters exhausted its soil. Otherwise his breezy contentions are wrong. I didn’t find out what the base rum so I’m none the wiser. The information on the Spicing was interesting though. I didn’t pursue it any further as to be honest I can probably guess that it will be a fairly young Trini rum.