Tag: Ben Simpson

The story behind Smoke and Oakum’s Gunpowder Rum

“Rum has flavour, it has heritage, and it has quality,” says Dave Broom in his wide ranging work entitled (rather directly) Rum. That sonorous word one can’t help saying without a slight-smile. Rum, roll the ‘r’, has also been described in its early years as that ‘hot, hellish, and terrible liquor’. This was when rum was for slaves, indigenous peoples, the poor and the press-ganged and other more antisocial characters – your pirates, privateers, rebels and ye smugglers.