I’m doing preliminary research for a lengthy post that tries to sort out Jamaica rum myths such as that they had various pits of stillage and lees full of banana peels, dead bats, and occasional animal carcasses. There aren’t many concrete references to such phenomena and I think the bulk of the modern myth can be attributed to Hugh Barty-King and Anton Massal’s 1983 text, Rum: Yesterday and Today (a few really smart people dispute this assertion).
Barty-King and Massal infamously reference AC Barnes whose text I just got a hold of and I am making available below his passage on rum in its entirety. Barnes references two mid century journal articles I have never seen before and I’ll be inter library loaning them soon enough. I have one other paper by McFarlane that is probably another version of what Barnes references.
What I think so far is that to a very limited degree the myths are true, but there should be a lot of ***’s. For starters I think animal bones were initially added to ferments as a yeast nutrient and the chemistry was known quite well mid 19th century. This of course got perverted by the depressions Barnes mentions when extremely brilliant entrepreneurs fled the industry. Eventually there was likely deliberate misinformation as some could produce heavy rums and some could not. Eccentric ingredients with tonal sympathies were added because it was still not fully believed that particular strains of yeast were responsible for specific character. These one time experiments grew into legends and it should be noted no eccentric ingredients are ever mentioned in the works of Charles Allen, Percival Greg, H.H. Cousins, or S.F. Ashby. But those papers were widely circulated back to London and the other islands so any funny business would severely damage the Jamaican rum brand.
I suspect the myth was again compounded by a confusion of cisterns. I believe extra cisterns existed that were not related to rum production but rather were for distillery slops holding what would go into animal feeds. If its for the pigs why not throw in the bananas. If a bat drowns no big deal. The myth is possibly compounded mid 20th century by UWI professors being given tours of sites like Hampden, observing various cisterns and seeing strange practices, then not being able to sort out their explicit functions. This a lot of conjecture but its what I have so far.
Below I’m quoting the entirety of Barnes passage on rums. The text is just too rare to not make available.
Barnes starts by dedicating his text:
TO MY WIFE FOR FIFTY YEARS OF HAPPINESS IN MANY LANDS
The Author has 25 years of agricultural experience in the Colonial Services and in 1938 was appointed General Manager of the West Indies Sugar Co. Ltd. He was later seconded as Director of Research to the Sugar Manufacturers’ Association (of Jamaica) Ltd. He has now retired, but still acts in a consultative capacity to many large firms and organizations. His previous book on sugar, ‘The Agriculture of the Sugar Cane’ was published by Leonard Hill in 1953. The present work, an entirely new publication, will certainly maintain the Author’s already high reputation.
Fermentation Products (p.375)
Rum
The potable alcoholic product obtained by distilling fermented sugar-cane juice or sugar-cane molasses is known as rum. The name is confined to the distinctly flavoured alcoholic distillate prepared from these materials in the country in which they are produced. Under the law of the United Kingdom a potable spirit distilled from sugar-cane molasses may only be designated as rum when made in a sugar-cane producing country. The fact that sugar-cane juice could develop intoxicating qualities was known in ancient times, but the preparation of rum began much later, as being associated with the development of the sugar industry in island of the Caribbean when they were colonized in the early seventeenth century. Rum production has been a basic feature of the sugar industry in that region even since, and continues to provide a profitable method of utilizing a high proportion of cane molasses there, as well as in some other countries. During periods of grave depression of the sugar industry in the British territories of the West Indies rum was of major importance, and at times surpassed that of sugar, which might not have survived with the support of commerce in the secondary product. Until recent times the distilleries, which usually form an integral part of the establishments for processing cane, with fermentation vats, stills, and rum store near to the sugar factory, were operated by traditional rule-of-thumb methods, as some still are today.
The whole process was in the charge of a distiller upon whose experience and skill, entirely unaided by any scientific knowledge or chemical control, the success of the distillery depended. He tolerated no interference, was highly suspicious of any attempted innovation, and jealously guarded the secrets of his mysterious procedures, only imparting any of his knowledge to an apprentice selected by him who paid a substantial fee to be allowed to learn something of the intricacies of distillery operation. When fermentation was sluggish, a dead animal, a large piece of meat, or some other fancied corrective would be pitched into the offending vat. Each distillery had its special brand of rum, often more than one, the process of manufacture being related to the type of rum which the brand purported to represent. It was firmly believed that each brand of rum was typical of the sugar estate and distillery from which it originated, and that the rum sold under a particular brand could not be imitated by another distillery. It was claimed, among other things, that the soil in which the cane was grown determined the basic quality, which might be modified by changes in fermentation procedure to produce variants of the type.
Rum merchants then, as today, took objection to changes in the character of a brand, though these were often more imagined than real, and the opinion of experts in regard to taste and dour was a majour factor in marketing. It is strange that these mysteries of rum were no elucidated and exposed earlier Amalgamations of small estates with their small sugar and rum establishments, which were replaced by the early ‘central’ factory with its distillery, were one of the features of the nineteenth century. They were among the causes of more than one brand of rum being made a single distillery, but no difficulty on that account appears to have occurred either in manufacture or marketing. In the early years of this century some of these ‘centrals’ became units of much larger undertakings, losing their individuality in the new enterprises which grew the cane under unified management and processed it into sugar and alcohol in new high-capacity plants. Chemical control of factory and distillery accompanied these changes, and research exposed the closely guarded secrets of the distiller and the fallibility of the experts.
An interesting example may be described. An influential sugar company acquired a number of estates with their factories and distilleries and the brands of rum associated with them. As well as centralizing sugar production, it was decided to conduct the manufacture of rum in one distillery ancillary to the new modern factory, advice having been obtained to the effect that no difficulty wold be experienced in producing various types of rum at a central distillery. This was opinion was checked by submitting eight samples of different brands of rum from the old distilleries under secret marks to a leading expert in London, duplicates being retained for further use if necessary. Not one of the brands was correctly identified. The manufacture and successful marketing of the old brands, with some new ones, is still centrally conducted more than thirty years after this episode. In that period great changes have occurred in cane varieties and sugar-factory operation. New land has been brought into production. No segregation of molasses occurs, and different types of rum are made at convenience from the materials drawn from the storage installation. As in sugar manufacture, the ‘secrets’ of rum quality lie in chemical and technical knowledge and control.
West Indian rums are characterized by their aroma and flavour, which are generally more pronounced in rums distilled in the pot stills usually employed than in those from continuous stills. The setting of the mash, the mode of generating the yeast, and the procedure of fermentation affect the nature and extent of the secondary products responsible for those characters. These are principally esters, mainly ethyl and butyl acetates, known in the trade as ‘ethers’, so-called heavy rums containing a high proportion and light rums only comparatively small amounts. Organic acids, aldehydes (especially acetaldehyde), fusel oil, and furfural are also present. The flavour of certain Jamaica rums is due to secondary fermentations brought about by acetic, lactic, and butyric bacteria. In earlier times the heavier types were much more popular than now, but their redolent odour, which persisted for some time after consumption, has led to change in public taste to lighter types, which are distilled in column stills, and are more similar to whiskies and gins, though still possessing a distinctive character. Continuous stills enable the compounds responsible for the heavy aroma to be separated, resulting in a purer form of potable spirit more acceptable to the discriminating drinker and less objectionable to his associates.
When freshly distilled, the alcoholic strength of rum is from 40 to 60 degrees overproof. The liquid is colorless, and though of characteristic odour, bears little resemblance in flavour or aroma to bottled rums. When a coloured rum is ordered, caramel is added to produce the tint required. Rums are matured for varying periods, and are often blended to produce particular flavours in the diluted liquor sold for consumption.
The process of fermentation and distillation are closely similar to those for industrial alcohol, except that the molasses is rarely clarified, and pure cultures of yeast are not always used as in the latter. The yeast used is Saccharomyces cerevisiae, of which are are several strains. It occurs naturally on sugar cane, and no special preparation of a culture was practised for the more highly flavoured rums distilled in pot stills from mashes fermented in wood vats. From 2 to 3 gal. of molasses produce 1 gal. of proof rum. The fermentation conversion of sugar is usually more than 90 per cent, and alcohol recovery ranges between some 40 and 60 per cent of the theoretical yield.
Until about 1950 there had been little progress in production methods in the countries making pot-still flavoured rums, apart from the introduction of chemical control. For these reasons efficiencies were low, though with ample molasses available and no alternative and remunerative method of disposal readily available, poor recovery was not a matter for serious consideration. Shortly before this the market for these types declined, a factor which directed attention to practice in countries manufacturing lighter types, with close attention to the pre-treatment of molasses, the preparation of seed yeast in pure culture, incremental fermentation, and the use of high density mashes. Arroyo conducted extensive investigations over a period of some years, and other workers also made notable contributions to improvements in distillery practice both for rum and alcohol production. The principle features of these have been reviewed by McFarlane (1949), who describes their applications to commercial practice and quotes numerous references to the original publications.
McFarlane’s views regarding the need for rum-distillery practices to be modernized in Jamaica in the light of results of research and their application elsewhere were supported in an independent discussion by Campbell (1959), who advocated changes in practice in that well-known rum producing island. His object was ‘to have Jamaica rum recognized specifically, rather than a general association of rum with Jamaica.’ This stemmed from a market survey conducted in 1957, which disclosed that while consumers associated rum with Jamaica, the actual origin of the rum they drank was not a matter of concern to them.