{"product_id":"the-invention-of-rum-creating-the-quintessential-atlantic-commodity","title":"The Invention of Rum: Creating the Quintessential Atlantic Commodity","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"color: rgb(43, 0, 255);\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eShortlisted for the Nach Waxman Prize for Food \u0026amp; Drink Scholarship.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRum began as waste. Fermented and distilled from the refuse of sugar production in the seventeenth-century Caribbean, it became one of the most consequential commodities of the Atlantic world. Jordan B. Smith's account of how that happened is grounded in archival research across the Caribbean, North America, and Britain,.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003eWhat makes the book compelling is its focus on the people who actually made rum rather than the merchants and planters who profited from it. Enslaved laborers in the Caribbean brought knowledge of fermentation from West Africa and the Americas, experimenting with processes and materials in ways that shaped the drink's essential character. Smith traces their contributions alongside those of colonial distillers, imperial sailors, and London gin drinkers caught up in the social upheavals rum helped produce.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003eThe history moves between plantation distilleries and urban taverns, trading posts and garrison mess halls, connecting individuals across the Atlantic world whose lives were shaped by this single commodity. The economics and politics are carefully handled, but the book never loses sight of the human cost of the system that produced rum, nor of the ingenuity of those who had the least to gain from it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003eA serious work of scholarship that reads with the clarity and momentum of narrative history.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\"\u003eHardcover.\u003cspan style=\"color: rgb(43, 0, 255);\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Pennsylvania Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41583644311685,"sku":"Jordan B. Smith","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0297\/5046\/0549\/files\/SmithInventionRumCover.jpg?v=1776175131","url":"https:\/\/www.kitchenartsandletters.com\/products\/the-invention-of-rum-creating-the-quintessential-atlantic-commodity","provider":"Kitchen Arts \u0026 Letters","version":"1.0","type":"link"}