1892 Drinks of the world

DRINKS.

154

the separation of all the saccharine matter which will crystallize, and is a dense, viscous liquid, varying from light yellow to nearly black, according to the source from which it is obtained; but its distillation will not produce rum. Sugar or molasses, if distilled, will produce, alcohol, but it will have no character of rum. This peculiar odour is imparted to it by the addition, in distillation, of "skimmings," which are the matters separated from the sugar in clarifying and evaporation ; that is to say, the scum of the precipi- They contain all the necessaries of fermentation, and when mixed with molasses and " dunder," which is the fer- mented wash left from distillation, are distilled into rum. The odour of rum is very volatile ; so much so, that improves so much by age that, at a sale in Carlisle in 1865, rum, known to be 140 years old, sold at three guineas a bottle. Like all alcohol, rum, when distilled, is white, the colour being given to it, as it used to be in brown brandy, by caramel (burnt sugar). Much of the rum sold in England is made from "silent" spirit, flavoured with butyric ether ; and it is this stuff which is sold as '' trade rum " for export to Africa. Some years since an action was brought by an African merchant against the vendor of " trade rum " for damages caused by it to his trade. All went merrily tators, clarifiers and evaporators is mixed with the rinsing of the boiling pans, and is thus called. it should be casked immediately after distillation. The raw spirit is extremely injurious ; but it

the neo^roes drank the rum, when it

suddenly

till