the sweat of slave cane

It is said that modern rum was discovered by slaves. The exact circumstances of this particular theory were as unwritten as most of the slave experience, but it's an interesting theory. Made from the molasses that in the 16th Century was just the waste of the refining process of slave-grown sugar cane fields, it is said that some exploited Africans discovered the quality drunk derived from fermenting the white master's waste.

Some try to dispel this view, conjuring that it was the enterprising masters and colonial lords who discovered a way to make value out of the dregs of their industry. If this indeed be the case, rum is no less birthed by the African holocaust of hemispheric chattel slavery, and the indigenous holocaust laid on by European conquerors.

Just for my admonishment of Bacardi, acquaintances have chided me for politicizing my spirits, as typical a critique if ever the was one. But as a connoisseur (or geek) of sugar cane based liquors, I would be committing an unpardonable crime to isolate the product from the process and the past. Or perhaps that would be a crime to my marxism.

Rum is as political as electoral campaigns, riots, and sneakers. And it is a fine sub-plot to anyone's life, as fine as any other culinary obsession, be they whiskey or wine, pork or potatoes.

At base

So I start with a dual premise, both Marxist and aesthetic. To reiterate, we must use many tools to break the alienation of our products from their processes and producers, capitalism is inherently exploitative and vile, no business is good business, and the bourgeoisie controls the forces of production, forcing us to complicitly depend upon their industries.

That latter point is as crucial as any other. Someone find me a worker-owned rum distillery. No? Then I will take you along for my journey to discover the world's best and worst rums.

A more consumer-based and less radical theme guides some of this as well. As I said, all capitalist business is evil, but some worse than others. If a brand were behind the 9/11 attacks, you wouldn't purchase it either, would you?

Well, I didn't need a thin little book to tell me that the world's biggest rum seller is in large part responsible for a trans-national web of terrorist attacks, while in the field of politics it endorses both free trade and intellectual property rights while doggedly pursuing campaigns that fruitfully undermine both.

Bacardi. It tastes like piss, and pays for bombs. But more on that later.