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Smoke & Oakum’s Gunpowder Rum is a recreation of a style of rum that is perhaps 300-years old – a style that would have been consumed by pirates, smugglers, privateers, navy hands and practitioners of voodoo. Before the invention of the column still rum production was an uneven affair with full-bodied and dark styles predominating. Syrupy probably (from added molasses), rough definitely. To blunt the coarse character of this ‘kill-devil’ spirit it was not an uncommon practice to augment the flavor, and not just with sweeteners. Herbs, spices, supposed aphrodisiacs, tobacco and gunpowder were all used. 

The heritage of spiced rums is a long one and no recent invention. Perhaps the most mythical flavoring additive was gunpowder. Blackbeard the Pirate (Edward Teach) was said to have drunk rum and gunpowder before boarding the ships of his victims. Legend has it that this most famous of pirates would fill a tankard with rum, set it alight and then sprinkle black gunpowder over the flaming mix. Great fizzing sparks would result. Blackbeard would then drink down this rum, thereafter setting out to terrorise the shipping lanes of the early 18th Century... Why would a man do such a thing? Who can say. It is true that in voodoo ritual the consumption of a mixture of rum, gunpowder, soil from a freshly dug grave and human blood is used in ritual observances. Perhaps this is the origin of this peculiar habit (Blackbeard's reputed invincibility was sometimes implied to be the result of certain unholy rituals). Or it could simply be an example of normal shipboard practice (aboard ‘ships of the line’ gunnery officers would sometimes taste their gunpowder to check its quality before loading bags with charge). At the juncture of these worlds of 'truth' and 'legend' resides S.& O.’s Gunpowder Rum. Our recreated spirit taps into this rich heritage of legendary pirates, long-lost shipboard rituals and life upon the roiling seas of history. 

Alc 51.6%

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