RUM

is a variety of ardent spirits, distilled in the West Indies, from the fermented skimmings of the sugar teaches, mixed with mola es, and diluted with water to the proper degree. A sugar plantation in Jamaica or Antigua, which makes 200 hogsheads of sugar, of about 16 cwt. each, requires, for the manufacture of its rum two copper stills; one of 1000 gallons for the wash, and one of 600 gallons for the low wines, with corresponding worm refrigeratories. It also requires two cisterns, one of 3000 gallons for the lees or spent wash of former distillations, called dunder ( Quasi redundar , Span.), another for the skimmings of the clarifiers and teaches of the sugar-house; along with twelve, or more, fermenting cisterns or tuns. Lees that have been used more than three or four times, are not considered to be equally fit for exciting fermentation, when mixed with the sweets, as fresher lees. The wort is made, in Jamaica, by adding to 1000 gallons of dunder, 120 gallons of mola es, 720 gallons of skimmings (= 120 of mola es in sweetne ), and 160 gallons of water; so that there may be in the liquid nearly 12 per cent. of solid saccharum. Another proportion, often used, is 100 gallons of mola es, 200 gallons of lees, 300 gallons of skimmings, and 400 of water; the mixture containing, therefore, 15 per cent. of sweets. These two formulæ prescribe so much spent wash, according to my opinion, as would be apt to communicate an unpleasant flavour to the spirits. Both the fermenting and flavouring principles reside chiefly in the fresh cane juice, and in the skimmings of the clarifier; because, after the syrup has been boiled, they are in a great measure di ipated. I have made many experiments upon fermentation and distillation from West India mola es, and always found the spirits to be perfectly exempt from any rum flavour. The fermentation goes on most uniformly and kindly in very large ma es, and requires from 9 to 15 days to complete; the difference of time depending upon the strength of the wort, the condition of its fermentable stuff, and the state of the weather. The progre of the attenuation of the wash should be examined from day to day with a hydrometer, as I have described in the article Distillation . When it has reached nearly to its maximum , the wash should be as soon as po ible transferred by pumps into the still, and worked off by a properly regulated heat; for if allowed to stand over, it will deteriorate by acetification. Dr. Higgins’s plan, of suspending a basket full of limestone in the wash-tuns, to counteract the acidity, has not, I believe, been found to be of much use. It would be better to cover up the wash from the contact of atmospheric air, and to add perhaps a very little sulphite of lime to it, both of which means would tend to arrest the acetous fermentation. But one of the best precautions against the wash becoming sour, is to preserve the utmost cleanline among all the ve els in the distillery. They should be scalded at the end of every round with boiling water and quicklime. About 115 gallons of proof rum are usually obtained from 1200 gallons of wash. The proportion which the product of rum bears to that of sugar, in very rich moist plantations, is rated, by Edwards, at 82 gallons of the former to 16 cwt. of the latter; but the more usual ratio is 200 gallons of rum to 3 hogsheads of sugar. But this proportion will nece arily vary with the value of rum and mola es in the market, since whichever fetches the most remunerating price, will be brought forward in the greatest quantity. In one considerable estate in the island of Grenada, 92 gallons of rum were made for every hogshead (16 cwts.) of sugar. See Still . | Rum imported, in | Retained for Home Consumption.—Duty 9 s. per Imp. Gallon. | | 1835. | 1836. | 1837. | 1835. | 1836. | 1837. | | Galls. | 5,540,170; | 4,993,942; | 4,612,416. | 3,416,966; | 3,325,068; | 3,184,599. |