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I’ve recently been re-reading Ian Williams’ Rum: A Social and Sociable History. In the introduction, the author recalls growing up in a poor family where rum made its rare appearance around Christmastime, when dad would splurge on a bottle; the recently-ended Christmas season put me in a mood to pick up my copy and enjoy Williams’ storytelling again. Which in turn has prompted a few musings, while sipping a glass or three, on “the real spirit of ’76.”

Not least among these reflections has been wondering whether there is any non-teetotal American who doesn’t go through a rum-and-Coke phase, at some point. My brother did, a few years ago. Recently, two friends, completely independently, have been frequently pouring rum-and-Cokes in place of other adult beverages.

And when I began drinking during my last year or so of college (late bloomers; there’s no help for us) rum-and-Coke was my “go to” choice for a while. I suppose that it was less an acquired taste than beer, yet almost as reliably-available at most college drinking scenes and, of course, caffeinated to boot.

I’ve never been much of a cola drinker, though, otherwise, so looking back it’s not surprising that rum-and-Coke faded from my life as everyone I’d known in college fled to the four corners, and drinking at bars and parties was largely replaced by drinking at home. I didn’t keep cola on hand at home, after all, whereas I always had milk in the fridge, and thus like so many others I took inspiration from The Dude and poured a number of White Russians over a few years. (Mostly using ridiculously overpriced vodkas which Williams, in various asides, rightly points out are all essentially interchangeable.)

Rum was completely absent from my personal pharmacopeia for a few years, probably, other than perhaps an unfinished bottle of Bacardi somewhere in back of the liquor cabinet. Since I didn’t have cola around I can have had no other use for that stuff; it’s hard to imagine anyone enjoying straight Bacardi, at least when there’s any alternative.

Bacardi takes its share of kicking in Williams’ book, though frankly I think he was rather restrained: I’m not even sure the stuff merits the name of rum. Though for years, like many and perhaps most Americans, I had no idea that rum could be anything other than bland, or else bland-with-so-called-”spices.”

Fortunately my horizons were broadened maybe five years ago, probably at least in part by reading Williams’ book or else looking forward to reading it (I seem to recall it being a popular item at the library). At least one reviewer has called Pyraat Rum a “gateway” rum, and it served that function for me. Pyraat is showy, with its squat bottle, ribbon, cork and medallion, and one pays for all of that, but unlike many other premium brands, one also gets something better than the ordinary stuff as well, rather than just spending a lot on packaging. Pyraat is sweet and fruity, in a good way, stopping just short (in my opinion) of being syrupy treacle.

Nowadays I don’t get the stuff often, though, having discovered what seems like a better value in Appleton Estate‘s product. Appleton seems a bit like the rum equivalent of my standby booze, Evan Williams bourbon: neither extravagantly marketed nor extravagantly packaged, and lacking the complexity of a great aged Scotch or Cognac certainly, but refreshingly affordable and quite good all the same. Certainly good enough to enjoy without any extra ingredients.

I’ve not had many other rums, really. In recent years I’ve lacked the means to drink like the elite, and certainly feel no social pressures to pretend to such status (when I do splurge, on a bottle of Aberlour say, my walls are unimpressed). So I’ve not yet splashed out on investigating 10 Cane. Williams, like other connoisseurs, suggests Haiti’s Rhum Barbancourt as not only the finest commercial product by far of its impoverished country of origin, but the finest product sold in the category of rum as well; I would be willing to part with the funds necessary to investigate it but have never seen the stuff.

I can say that the worst rum I’ve ever had, demonstrating unsuspected depths beneath even the mass-market crap, was Sailor Jerry’s, which I actually purchased on the strong recommendation of a friend. Who, I will just say, apparently has vastly different tastes. Vastly different. And my own reaction to its cherry cough syrup flavor was, in fact, relatively mild compared to that of another pal also bamboozled by the praises sung of Sailor Jerry by someone who shall remain nameless.

I feel confident that there is a remarkable variety of good rum out there, given the range of flavors represented by just the two good rums I’ve tasted. Appleton has the most wonderful toffee flavor, entirely different from the fresh fruit flavors of Pyraat. This at least suggests an in-category variety rivalling that of Scotch, or even whiskey as a whole. (Obviously this is mere speculation on my part, needing scientific testing, but I’m young and have plenty of time to explore the hypothesis.)

One type of rum I would like to try but, to my knowledge, cannot, is New England rum. According to Williams the last representative of the centuries-old tradition of New England rum distilling shut down in 1983, alas. Admittedly it may be that New England rum is better as an imaginary product than it ever was in reality; Williams suggests that it was always considered an inferior product to Caribbean rums, though I’m not entirely certain what this really means. Did its quality overlap with the more modest end of the Caribbean rum spectrum? Or was it Bacardi with a pilgrim-hat label? Worse?

The question is academic, of course, though for some years I’ve thought that there could be a real market opportunity in reviving New England rum. Williams’ book notes that New England is still one of the country’s best markets for rum; might not progressive and educated Bostonians, e.g., respond to a local product which celebrates a fun part of their region’s history? Given the inability of its manufacturers to keep the revived Templeton Rye on shelves, it seems an idea worth investigating. If anyone has a few million lying around doing nothing I might be willing to move out east and have a try.

Until then, I’ve got my rum, and my book, at least. For what it’s worth I can heartily endorse Rum the book. Williams is a good storyteller; the work is lively, informative and entertaining. And as an added bonus for stickybuffalo readers and anyone else of a leftish-leaning persuasion, Williams is himself one of those cynical but witty and good-hearted lefty journalists, complete with flask accessory, which they don’t seem to make anymore. Though his book stays on topic, he’s certainly not shy about taking an occasional legitimate opportunity to poke the then-contemporary Bush administration or conservatism generally.

One likes to imagine more than one relatively-sophisticated (i.e., reads a book now and then) right-winger has sat down with an expensive rum, an expensive cigar and a copy of this book, and ended up finding the whole lot spoiled by unpalatable political observations.