"This work examines rum as a colonial commodity and product of plantation slavery in twentieth-century cultural texts from and about the anglophone Caribbean"--

“Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!” A favorite of pirates, the molasses-colored liquid brings to mind clear blue seas, weather-beaten sailors, and port cities filled with bar wenches. But enjoyment of rum spread far beyond the scallywags of the Caribbean—Charles Dickens savored it in punch, Thomas Jefferson mixed it into omelets, Queen Victoria sipped it in navy grog, and the Kamehameha Kings of Hawaii drank it straight up. In Rum,Richard Foss tells the colorful, secret history of a spirit that not only helped spark the American Revolution but was even used as currency in Australia. This book chronicles the five-hundred-year evolution of rum from a raw spirit concocted for slaves to a beverage savored by connoisseurs. Charting the drink’s history, Foss shows how rum left its mark on religious rituals—it remains a sacramental offering among voodoo worshippers—and became part of popular songs and other cultural landmarks. He also includes recipes for sweet and savory rum dishes and obscure drinks, as well as illustrations of rum memorabilia from its earliest days to the tiki craze of the 1950s. Fast-paced and well written, Rum will delight any fan of mojitos and mai tais.

While the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico may conjure up images of vacation getaways and cocktails by the sea, these easy stereotypes hide a story filled with sweat and toil. The story of sugarcane and rum production in the Caribbean has been told many times. But few know the bittersweet story of sugar and rum in the jungles of the Yucatán Peninsula during the nineteenth century. This is much more than a history of coveted commodities. The unique story that unfolds in John R. Gust and Jennifer P. Mathews’s new history Sugarcane and Rum is told through the lens of Maya laborers who worked under brutal conditions on small haciendas to harvest sugarcane and produce rum. Gust and Mathews weave together ethnographic interviews and historical archives with archaeological evidence to bring the daily lives of Maya workers into focus. They lived in a cycle of debt, forced to buy all of their supplies from the company store and take loans from the hacienda owners. And yet they had a certain autonomy because the owners were so dependent on their labor at harvest time. We also see how the rise of cantinas and distilled alcohol in the nineteenth century affected traditional Maya culture and that the economies of Cancún and the Mérida area are predicated on the rum-influenced local social systems of the past. Sugarcane and Rum brings this bittersweet story to the present and explains how rum continues to impact the Yucatán and the people who have lived there for millennia.

Rum arguably shaped the modern world. It was to the eighteenth century what oil is to the present, but its significance has been diminished by a misguided sense of old-fashioned morality dating back to Prohibition. In fact, Rum shows that even the Puritans took a shot now and then. Rum, too, was one of the major engines of the American Revolution, a fact often missing from histories of the era. Ian Williams's book -- as biting and multilayered as the drink itself -- triumphantly restores rum's rightful place in history, taking us across space and time, from the slave plantations of seventeenth-century Barbados (the undisputed birthplace of rum) through Puritan and revolutionary New England, to voodoo rites in modern Haiti, where to mix rum with Coke risks invoking the wrath of the gods. He also depicts the showdown between the Bacardi family and Fidel Castro over the control of the lucrative rights to the Havana Club label. Telling photographs are also featured in this barnstorming history of the real "Spirit of 1776."

Mix yourself a Hurricane and see New Orleans through a glass of rum. Like a drunken Mardi Gras parade, the history of New Orleans lurches from electrifying highs to heart-rending lows. Through it all, good drink was a constant - especially rum. The victory at the Battle of New Orleans was sealed with a barrel of rum, and a half-hearted implementation of Prohibition a century later certainly didn't dampen the city's spirits. From priests making tafia to modern delights like Old New Orleans and Bayou, rum has always been an integral part of the funky, sultry, crazy story of the Crescent City. Longtime historian and writer Mikko Macchione presents a witty and informative history of the city and its love affair with the sweetest of liquors.

In this sweeping volume, Charles Coulombe explores the fascinating origins and far-reaching legacies of the drink that kept the British Navy afloat for 300 years' while establishing a colourful reputation as a mainstay of buccaneers, revolutionaries and trendsetters. From rum's role in the Boston Tea Party to its dubious distinction as the centre of the soul-crushing colonial Triangle Trade, here is the uncorked truth about the beverage that altered world history. Spiked with tantalising recipes, Rum is intriguing, informative and utterly intoxicating.'

Australia and its formation - through the distorted view of a rum bottle. Could the Rum Rebellion have been averted if Major Johnston wasn't hungover? Would the Eureka Stockade have been different if the rebels weren't pissed? How were prisoners to get drunk if Macquarie closed the only pub in the gaol? And why should sailors under fourteen be deprived of their sixteen shots of rum per day? These are just some of the questions raised in Matt Murphy's account of Australia's colonial history. Brimming with detailed research and irreverent character sketches, Rum looks at not just how much was drunk in colonial Australia (a lot!), but also the lengths people went to get their hands on it, the futile efforts of the early governors to control it, and the often disastrous and/or absurd consequences of its consumption. Those consequences aren't just in our past. Murphy goes beyond foundation stories to look at the legacy our love affair with alcohol has created, from binge drinking to lockout laws and from prohibition to urinating on the parliamentary carpet. So here's to Rum, for making bad decisions look like a good idea at the time.