LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Rum
built 649 days ago
The history of Rum is the history of sugar. Sugar is a sweet crystalline carbohydrate that occurs naturally in a variety of plants. One of those is the sugar cane (Saccharum officinarum), a tall, thick grass that has its origins in the islands of present-day Indonesia in the East Indies. Chinese traders spread its cultivation to Asia and on to India. Arabs in turn brought it to the Middle East and North Africa where it came to the attention of Europeans during the Crusades in the 11th century.
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Rum is a granite island but Kinloch Castle is made entirely of Red Sandstone from Annan. The luxurious castle with its ballroom, elaborate Great Hall and, for the time, unique and complicated showers, proved a wonderfully secluded venue for private parties with a glittering guest list. Seclusion and privacy were paramount and guns were often fired at approaching boats to discourage the curious - ... the 'Forbidden Island'. Rumour and legend abound about the island and the Castle, but are little founded on fact. It is said, for instance, that the family must have tired of the island because after one visit they locked the doors and left never to return. However this is not true and various members of the family visited up until the 1950s when Lady Bullough gifted the island to SNH. It is also said that music and instruments were left by the stands in the musicians gallery in the ballroom, which seems very unlikely since the instruments would have belonged to the musicians rather than the family. They did however leave wine in the cellars.
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Tommy Bahama Rum comes in two delightfully distinct flavors: Tommy Bahama White Sand and Tommy Bahama Golden Sun. Each begins with the best blackstrap molasses and the cleanest, clearest water naturally filtered through coral stone. Tommy Bahama Rums are fermented using a specially selected yeast imported from the wine-growing regions of South Africa. While Barbados is an ideal setting for the aging of rum due to its climate, R. L. Seale goes further to create the best setting for maturation. They age the rum at a lower proof to preserve the most delicate flavors. The lower the strength, the more barrels needed, and so Tommy Bahama is aged in small batches in smaller barrels.
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Rum became an important trade good in the early period of the colony of New South Wales. The value of rum was based upon the lack of coinage among the population of the colony, and due to the drink's ability to allow its consumer to temporarily forget about the lack of creature comforts available in the new colony. The value of rum was such that convict settlers could be induced to work the lands owned by officers of the New South Wales Corps. Due to rum's popularity among the settlers, the colony gained a reputation for drunkenness even though their alcohol consumption was less than levels commonly consumed in England at the time.[18]
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Rum Cay's history was only slightly tinted by explorers, colonists, and pirates. Salt mines were operational until a hurricane wiped them out in 1853, leaving the isle to bask in the sun for over 100 years until developers began plans for a resort.
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Locally, Rum was used as cure-all for many of the aches and pains that afflicted those living in the tropics. Sugar plantation owners ... sold it, at discounted prices, to naval ships that were on station in the Caribbean in order to encourage their presence in local waters and thus discourage the attentions of marauding pirates. The British navy adopted a daily ration of a half-pint of 160 proof Rum by the 1730s. This ration was subsequently modified by mixing it with an equal amount of water to produce a drink called grog. The grog ration remained a staple of British naval life until 1969.
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