I'm gonna make you a rum offer you can't refuse...
Don't worry. There are no horseheads involved.
Hi there,
Monday’s come around again and I’m going to quench your thirst for knowledge with a Drink To That edition focused on rum.
I love rum for a lot of reasons. The tastes, regionality, stories and history all mingle together in a cocktail of epic proportions.
Crime and dodgy dealings are inevitably linked to the story of rum. Colourful rogues, smugglers, pirates and anti-heroes all loom large in history and that is the theme of today’s newsletter.
We’ve got some new Italian rum that would undoubtedly be in the booze cabinet of Don Corleone, some history of a badass lady rum-runner and a sea shanty for sipping grog at your leisure.
Best,
Jamie
An Offer You Can’t Refuse: Introducing Don Picco Italian Spiced Rum
Spiced rum is experiencing its moment in the spotlight, with new brands appearing from all over the world. I’m always on the lookout for interesting rum concepts and a brand that piqued my interest was Don Picco e Figlie rum.
Inspired by Italian culture, Don Picco comes from the founder of Angioletti Italian cider, David Peek. I got in touch with Dave to find out more about Don Picco and here’s the story.
Sharing the story of Italy
As the creator of Angioletti, Peek has an interest in bringing Italian inspired drink concepts to the UK and working with Italian restaurants.
Don Picco is the next step in expanding his portfolio and although he doesn’t have an Italian background, Peek is conscious of developing a product that continues the good work that Angioletti has been doing.
The Don Picco name is a play on Peek’s own name and a tribute to his family. Figlie references his daughters, while Don is a nod to his father, who passed away in 2021. For every bottle sold, £1 will be donated to the Pancreatic Cancer UK charity.
This emphasis on family certainly rings true of Italian culture and Peek is committed to full transparency.
The distillate used for the rum is sourced from Panama and blended, aged and spiced in Valle d’Aosta in North-Western Italy. The rum has been described as having flavours of vanilla, oak, dried apricot, chocolate and spices and working well with specific cocktails.
Some suggestions include an Italian Dark & Stormy, Italian Spiced Mojito or Italian Rum Punch.
What you see is what you get
Peek also said that positioning is key for Don Picco and that he wants to get away from terms like ‘craft’ and ‘premium.’ In his eyes, those terms have lost meaning and in the early days of Angioletti cider he tapped into the hand-crafted element of the product but has since moved away from those terms.
Don Picco is a high-quality spiced rum positioned at an affordable price. It’s about making the drink accessible to the widest possible demographic while also elevating the spiced rum category.
In my opinion, starting a rum brand should be about moving the industry forward. It shouldn’t be about making fast money at the expense of a terrible product and gimmicky messaging.
Don Picco is a spiced rum from the right place and if you’d like to find out more about it, be sure to check out the website here.
Rum Runners: Marie ‘Spanish Marie’ Waite
The rum industry has been profitable for people from all walks of life. Distillers, writers and explorers have all reaped rewards from the sugarcane-based spirit and the same goes for criminals. Rum running turned a tidy profit for bootleggers like Al Capone and there are many other infamous names that stand alongside Scarface.
Rum Runners is a series that remembers the most notorious rum smugglers in history and the mark they’ve left on popular culture. It’s important to note that bootlegging alcohol wasn’t limited to guys. The distinction for being the queen of rum-running arguably goes to Marie ‘Spanish Marie’ Waite.
Inheriting an empire
As the story goes, Marie Waite came from humble beginnings, but she was never ordinary. The daughter of a Swedish father and Mexican mother, Waite boasted a 6-foot frame, stunning blue eyes, olive skin and flowing black hair. Her beauty caught the eye of Florida gangster Charlie Waite, who’d set up a successful rum-running operation.
Everything changed for Spanish Marie in 1926 when her husband was gunned down by the US Coast Guard at Biscayne Bay. Widowed and ambitious, Waite inherited her husband’s empire and set about etching herself into the annals of history.
A femme fatale and shrewd businesswoman
In Rum War at Sea, historian Malcolm Willoughby described Waite as “a fickle and dangerous person, with morals as free as the four winds.” Spanish Marie established a reputation for ruthlessness and seduction, with there being various stories of her charming police officers in Key West and getting rid of her lovers by encasing them in ‘concrete boots.’
While these tales should be taken with a pinch of salt, there’s no doubt that Waite was a formidable woman and genius smuggler. She set up her operation in Havana, smuggling Cuban rum over to the US.
She created an armada of fast-moving schooners and motorboats that were quick enough to outrun the US Coast Guard. Her tactics involved sending a convoy of four big schooners from Havana. Three would be overflowing with booze, while the fourth acted as the muscle.
If stopped by the Coast Guard, the muscle acted as the distraction. The other three cargo boats would be free to escape and rendezvous with other motorboats in US waters. After switching vessels, the rum would be ferried over to the mainland.
Staying ahead of the authorities
When the Coast Guard invested in faster boats, Waite changed tactics by equipping her fleet with radio equipment and setting up a pirate transmitting station in Key West. The station transmitted fake intelligence to the Coast Guard and communicated instructions to the boats offshore in covert Spanish phrases.
This approach worked for a few years until the queen of rum smuggling was finally captured on 12th March 1928. Spanish Marie ran into a trap at Coconut Grove, Miami, which involved the authorities tricking her with a fake radio signal. She was apprehended unloading a batch of rum from Bimini on her flagship Kid Boots.
Yet Waite found a way to slip through the net. Apparently, she’d been so convinced that she’d be able to offload the rum that she’d left her two children alone at home. While being interrogated, she broke down and played the part of the distressed mother who needed to be there for her kids. She was granted bail at $500 for a temporary release on condition she attend a trial that had been arranged for the next day.
Waite didn’t attend the trial and her attorney claimed she was suffering from severe mental trauma. Her bond was extended to $3000 on condition of a medical report being submitted for Waite to prove her illness. She skipped town and disappeared with her boats and what’s estimated as a personal fortune of 1 million dollars.
Remembering the rum-running queen
The later life and death of Spanish Marie remain a mystery. But her infamy has been kept alive by Florida-based Key West Distillery, who brought out their Bad Bitch Spanish Marie rum in 2012.
This rum is as dark and devious as its namesake. Aged in vintage French oak barrels that were used to age red wine, the rum carries traces of tannin and salted caramel. Interestingly, it’s thought that Waite’s drink of choice was a rum punch made with red wine, which may have inspired the choice of the barrel for the ageing process.
Songs Of The Sea: Rolling Down To Old Maui
Songs Of The Sea puts the spotlight on some of history’s most enduring sea shanties that are connected to rum. Many shanties had a mournful tone to them and depicted harsh conditions at sea, which is an attitude that Rolling Down to Old Maui reflects.
Context
Originating in the 19th century, Rolling Down To Old Maui is a whaling song that refers to sailors hunting Kamchatka bowhead and sperm whales. They whalers are hunting near Maui in the Hawaiian Islands, where the whales were known to gather at certain times of the year.
The song captures the hunting habits of the whalers across different seasons. In March, they fished for Kamchatka whales and in November they got ready to sail to the subtropical Southern Seas to hunt for sperm whales. This is mentioned in the lyrics, which say that the whalers are saying goodbye to the cold of the North and excited to experience the heat of the South.
There’s an underlying tone of hardship within Rolling Down to Old Maui. The whalers are freezing in the North and need rum to warm themselves up. But they can look forward to drinking with the women in Maui and getting momentary relief.
Lyrics
It’s a damn tough life full of toil and strife
We whalemen undergo
And we don’t give a damn when the day is done
How hard the winds did blow
For we’re homeward bound from the Arctic ground
With a good ship, taut and free
And we don’t give a damn when we drink our rum
With the girls of Old Maui
Rolling down to Old Maui, me boys
Rolling down to Old Maui
We’re homeward bound from the Arctic ground
Rolling down to Old Maui
Once more we sail with a northerly gale
Through the ice and wind and rain
Them native maids, them tropical glades,
We soon shall see again.
Six hellish months have passed away
One the cold Kamchatka Sea,
But now we’re bound from the Arctic ground
Rolling down to Old Maui
Rolling down to Old Maui, me boys
Rolling down to Old Maui
We’re homeward bound from the Arctic ground
Rolling down to Old Maui
Once more we sail with a northerly gale
Towards our island home
Our mainmast sprung, our whaling done,
And we ain’t got far to roam
Our stuns’l bones is carried away
What care we for that sound?
A living gale is after us,
Thank God we’re homeward bound
Rolling down to Old Maui, me boys
Rolling down to Old Maui
We’re homeward bound from the Arctic ground
Rolling down to Old Maui
How soft the breeze through the island trees,
Now the ice is far astern
Them native maids, them tropical glades
Is a-waiting our return
Even now their soft brown eyes look out
Hoping some fine day to see
Our baggy sails runnin’ ‘fore the gales
Rolling down to Old Maui
Rolling down to Old Maui, me boys
Rolling down to Old Maui
We’re homeward bound from the Arctic ground
Rolling down to Old Maui