Thanksgiving Day is a great time to reflect on the history of how America was settled by the pilgrims. Allow us to present you a few facts about our rum-loving American colonists.
Americans of the colonial period were not beer drinkers, like the English imperialists. Instead, they were rum guzzlers. Colonizers drank rum heavily in newly settled parts of America, where beer would not keep. They considered it both comforting and refreshing.
Rum originated as a by-product of sugar production on the island of Barbados, an uninhabited island in the West Indies that had been claimed by the English in 1625. Georgia was the last part of the East Coast to be colonized. The founder of the colony, James Oglethorpe, tried to prohibit the sale of rum in Georgia, fearful for the survival of his colony.
Luckily his efforts to push more ale did not succeed. How disgusting…. butter beer bunt cake?