Yo Ho Ho! And a Bottle of Rum! The First Global Spirit

Sugar, it seems, is in almost all of our foods. And not just sugar, but sweeteners in general, are added to so many of our processed foods. As an additive it enhances flavor and aroma, and it helps products retain moisture. And in this day and age sugar is relatively inexpensive. But many are surprised to learn that sugar and sweeteners as an everyday food additive are a relatively recent innovation, and prior to the European invasions of the Western Hemisphere, sugar was a very costly luxury item. As Europeans established sugar plantations throughout their Caribbean and Latin America territories, sugar became more readily available for European markets. As the demand and consumption of cane sugar grew in the second half of the Second Millennia CE, the sugar processors were left with the byproduct molasses, and what can be made from molasses? Rum, and it would become the first distilled spirit to be sold around the globe. It would be easy to think that sugar cane was indigenous to the New World, since that is where most of the world’s sugar is grown in the Caribbean islands and Latin America, but it isn’t. It first came from Southeast Asia, and then spread into India, and eventually into the Arab world. In India and China, a fermented sugar wine was made as early as the late first millennia BCE. Marco Polo during his travels through Asia in the 14th Century CE noted of a “very good wine of sugar” which he was served in Persia. Because of the rarity of sugar in Europe, Marco Polo would have been quite surprised by this sugar wine.