“When a sufficient stock of the materials is got together, they add water to them, and ferment them in the common method, though the fermentation is always carried on very slowly at first; because at the beginning of the season for making rum in the islands, they want yeast, or some other ferment to make it work; but by degrees, after this they procure a sufficient quantity of the ferment, which rises up as a head to the liquor in the operation; and thus they are able afterwards to ferment and make their rum with a great deal of expedition, and in large quantities.”The article from Encyclopædia Britannica finishes with a useful tip for determining the quality of rum:
“When the wash is fully fermented, or to a due degree of acidity, the distillation is carried on in the common way, and the spirit is made up proof: though sometimes it is reduced to a much greater strength, nearly approaching to that of alcohol or spirit of wine, and it is then called double distilled rum. It might be easy to rectify the spirit and bring it to a much greater purity than we usually find it to be of: for it brings over in the distillation a very large quantity of the oil; and this is often so disagreeable, that the rum must be suffered to be by a long time to mellow before it can be used; whereas; if well rectified, it would grow mellow much sooner, and would have a much less potent flavour.”
“The best method of judging of it is, by setting fire to a little of it; and when it has burnt away all the inflammable part, examining the phlegm both by the taste and smell.”
In another era, Lloyd’s Encyclopædic Dictionary of 1895 described rum as:
“A spirit distilled chiefly in the West Indies from the fermented skimmings of the sugar-boilers and molasses, together with sufficient cane juice to impart the necessary flavour.”
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