Thursday, September 2, 2021

Sir Henry Morgan - Pirate or Patriot?

 Sir Henry Morgan - Pirate or Patriot?

By Donald Callum

Arrrrrghhh! Shiver me timbers!!

Everybody and his brother’s cousin knows that Henry Morgan was a pirate or more correctly, a privateer, but not many know he was a patriot too.

There were differences between pirates or buccaneers, and privateers. Pirates were “loose cannon” (pun intended), in that they owed allegiance only to themselves and their comrades and their looting and pillaging was done strictly for their own benefit.

Privateers were raiders, usually merchantmen that were given a guise of legality by a letters of marque, or, lettre de course, in French(giving us the word “corsair”). These documents were issued by governments to vessels allowing them to attack and capture enemy vessels and bring them before admiralty courts for condemnation and sale, thereby disrupting their enemies’ sea trade. This practice dated back to at least the 1500’s.

The word ‘buccaneer’ itself comes to us as an Anglicization of the French use of a Taino word. Got that?

Please let me try to explain: The Tainos used wooden barbecues called “buccans” to smoke manatee meat on the beaches. These “buccans” became “boucans” (pronounced: boo-con) in French and those hunters in Hispaniola who practiced smoking beef and pork, were called “boucaniers”(boo-con-ee-ayr). When the Spanish chased them from what is now Haiti they fled to Tortuga and joined English, French and Dutch sailors attacking Spanish shipping through the Windward passage.

Now back to Morgan. Henry was descended from an old Welsh family of warriors called Morgan who owned estates around present-day Cardiff. He was born in

1635 in Llanrumney (in Welsh, Llanrhymny). Young Henry was said to be better with a lance than with a book so a life of action was early on indicated.

Henry did not reach the West Indies as an indentured servant as has been long-rumoured but was in fact a junior officer in Penn and Venables’ expedition sent by Cromwell to the Caribbean to damage the Spanish hegemony in the region.

This expedition was unsuccessful in capturing Havana in Cuba, and then Santo Domingo in Hispaniola. Fearful of the wrath of Cromwell the Lord Protector if they returned from this very expensive sortie with nothing to show, Penn and Venables attacked the lightly garrisoned island of Jamaica which having no gold, silver, or jewels was used as a provision depot for the returning Spanish treasure fleets.

By 1660 with the monarchy restored, Henry’s uncle was sent out to be the Governor of Jamaica. Henry who was still in Barbados followed his uncle to Jamaica where he was already famous from his exploits with Penn and Venables, married his uncle’s eldest daughter and two of her sisters married his closest friends.

Morgan apprenticed at sea one might say under Commodore Christopher Mings, sailing as one of his captains as they attacked and looted Santiago de Cuba, and a couple of years later in 1663 down the Mexican coast attacking Campeche’s two forts and coming away with 14 Spanish ships as prizes.

Hollywood glamourises pirate sea battles but the truth is these encounters were costly and therefore largely avoided. Most of Morgan and other buccaneers’ successes came on land. In 1663, Henry Morgan the leader of a small fleet of 6 ships that set sail to attack the Spanish Main and did not return until 18 months had past. Morgan must have possessed great leadership skills because time and again he rose to the head of joint efforts involving disparate individuals, possibility due to his background as a soldier. This expedition left Port Royal and headed to New Spain first to the Yucatan and down along the Central American coast landing at Frontera. Morgan’s force marched 50 miles to attack the town of Villahermosa only to find that after capturing and looting the town their own ships had been taken by the Spanish. This forced them to capture 2 Spanish ships

and several coastal canoes to carry them back against the currents to regroup at the Yucatan. They then set out again down the Central American coastline to what is now Nicaragua and again inland to surprise the wealthy town of Granada which was taken with the assistance of local Indian tribes.

In 1668, Morgan sailed with ten vessels to Cow Island off the coast of Hispaniola (modern Haiti). Here the Oxford, a warship sent out for the defense of Jamaica by the British government, found the French privateer ship Le Cerf Volant. The British master of a ship from Virginia had accused the French vessel of piracy so the Cerf Volant was arrested and condemned as a prize by the Jamaica Court of Admiralty. After the Oxford was blown up (in an explosion said to have killed 250 people) while Morgan dined in the great cabin, the Cerf Volant ultimately became his flagship, under the new name of Satisfaction. After cruising east along the coast of Hispaniola and attacking coastal towns along the way, Morgan turned south to sail across the Caribbean again, making for Maracaibo in the Gulf of Venezuela. This he took, together with the more southerly town of Gibraltar. On their return journey, the privateers were bottled up at the lake of Maracaibo by several large Spanish warships and a reinforced fort. Morgan had to use great ingenuity to escape and doing so added to his treasure yet again.

In 1670 he met off modern-day Haiti with his captains and with their 1800 men decided to attack Panama, the legendary city of the Indies. They landed at Chagres and had to fight their way through the jungle first before reaching the first of three fortifications. Remember this was attempted by the legendary Sir Francis Drake who failed miserably. Morgan succeeded in capturing Panama, during the siege the city caught fire and was burned to the ground. Morgan and his comrades returned to Port Royal with hundreds of slaves and chests of gold and silver and jewels.

As happened often in Europe during the 17th century, politics had taken a turn back in England, attacking Spanish ships and cities became for a time an embarrassment for the English government and Henry Morgan and his protector, the Governor, were summoned home, but not punished. After three years

England’s attitude toward Spain again changed and once again Morgan was sent to relieve the threat against Jamaica.

Morgan at the age of 45, returned as Lieutenant Governor organized the island’s defenses and survived political treachery, whilst expanding his estates and their value. He also still enjoyed the company of his former colleagues a bit too much in the rum bars of Port Royal and his once admirable physique became bloated and his pallor yellowed. Morgan was said to have been faithful to his wife from the day they were married, but they were never able to have children

He died on the 25th of August 1688.

For many decades, Henry Morgan’s name meant only the name of a romantic "pirate" of yore, but there are recent signs of a re-evaluation by scholars. As John Weston asserts Morgan is being looked at “as one of Britain's most successful military strategists and as a man with the leadership qualities of an Alexander. He gained the loyalty of the buccaneers, who followed him without question, and the respect of kings and princes”

poems

'79
Pontiacs perched on cinder blocks
Weeds stubborn urban on the edges
Ghosts of tenements loom in sorrow
Glass shards embedded in the dirt
of the yards where the world streamed through
Smack dead center yet pushed to the fringes
One country to the next, Que Paso?
'08
Doormen flag taxis, grab shopping, pet dogs
Westside replica brought complete
Ethnic dinners presented safely
Beers of the world, Banks of the world
Hot real estate cold cultural state
Place made uneasy by the ones that once scorned us

Spanish heard only on Avenue DMALL FOR THE RICH

 
Manhattan now, is a mall for the rich
non-inclusive, vapid
as culturally vaKunt as the models it houses.
Harlem's gone, Lower East Side too
Where bums lay derelict
condos replace tenements
that housed your family
Mick Black Kraut Wop Jew Rican
Marx Brothers, Cohan, Cohen, Chan
5 Points, Chinatown, Bowery, Loisaida
Only The Heights remain
and brother its days are numbered
The Chelsea Hotel is being gentrified
flop for Burroughs Ginsberg Kerouac Warhol
and my brother Brian
yet another boutique boite for yuppies and twats
oh they'll think its cool on thousand buck sheets, but none of them will create a damn thing, but Jeez it's sure handy if you're hanging in the meatpacking district
Where do the tv whoors hang their meat now?
Disney's got Times Square, Trumps got the West Side, the Church and Columbia have the best
and NYU will take the
rest
 birthplace, of my grandparents & parents & our son, place where Brian died
 place where 2 young hearts first met
New York, NY was a helluva town


 

More EV Downtown 81 musings

I remember walking to that market in Brixton down Electric Avenue past the Fridge from your flat in Clapham and Antoinette and I buying snapper and groceries to cook escoveitch fish, rice and peas and for fritters the next morning if my memory hasn't jumbled it all up. It was like a West Indian Eastenders or sommat and great fun.


I also remember a pub you and i drank at at least once in Brixton's high street that was run by a Jamaican woman and they had a normal jukebox with a big as fuck speaker wired to it playing the classics.  Magic.

The footage of Basquiat walking around in the LES with all the rubble and individual building survivors looks exactly like Berlin and Dresden and London after WWII eerily uncanny even in the sunshine.  Every doorway/overhang/nook/cranny that could possibly be used as a shelter from sun/rain/snow/cold seemed inhabited. From 1st avenue east to Avenue C from 14th down to Houston it was largely DMZ/freeforall/NoMan'sLand.....

 I had 2 people at different times ask me if I was John Lurie... In 1981/mid82 we were in Jamaica but was hanging there before we left (Brother Brian introduced me to Stromboli pizzeria, the cheap Uke and Pole restaurants and bars with terrific jukeboxes around TSPark where one Friday night we smoked a spliff and were literally the only people in sight) and right after we returned to NY. I used to see Basquiat sleeping in Thompkins and Madonna in limo and Richard Hell and I mentioned I believe that my brother Brian lived (and was killed) on 9th between B&C and his pals were the Fleshtones and that Brian hung out with some Swami that liked cognac and that Ginsburg was around him etc......Antoinette got pregnant right around the weekend Brian was buried and we were living at the corner of 23rd and Park Ave South (4th avenue always for me) with Bill Laswell on the floor below us and a Nautica model next door who sunbathed topless on our common roof terrace....the East Village is gone, long gone now but it was terrific for a good while - hippies, new agers, punks, skins, fags, Ukes, Poles, Russkies, Ricans, African Americans, Egyptian taxi drivers, man it was cool for while yes indeedy...I miss the intercourse out of it

Doug's big day -out a short story

 Doug couldn’t keep from wobbling no how hard he tried. Stiffening his muscles or relaxing them produced the same result on his attempts to normalize his walking, namely he resembled a small sailboat caught in variable seas with a strong starboard wind across its bow. The wide berth other pedestrians were giving him as he navigated westward across Broadway and towards 6th Avenue, served as further proof of this affliction.

One pint too many, or maybe the addition of the several Irish whiskeys to the pints poured him by the affable Dublin refugee barman (“drink-serving terrorist”) stood him in appreciation of Doug’s longtime custom (“fishing for larger gratuity”) and grateful for the company of Doug and his pals on a slow Saturday afternoon. They were all members in good standing of the Empty Leg Association, and fully paid up. After all, Doug hadn’t been back to his old neighborhood in quite a while and though the plan had been to rendezvous at O’Faolain’s with the fellas and then to repair elsewhere to have an adult lunch over which much shit would be shot, and then to head homewards in the early evening sporting a pleasant buzz. The rendezvous was successfully and punctually made but the action plan stalled there.

That original plan died pretty early in the afternoon and at a half-past three pm David the Englishman, was the first to fall by the wayside blaming his early exit from the festivities on the weekend train schedules up to Westchester where he was staying with the in-laws. I stepped outside to see him off and watched him careen his way up the street to the corner of Lafayette and hail a yellow cab heading uptown.

Jumbo (bless his poor sainted mother) was so-named by Doug for the size of his asteroidal noggin, and next to him at the bar Ian MacLeod (aka Mac, or Piss-Face or “MacLoud” no one ever called him Ian) also possessed of a sizeable bonce , were both made of sterner stuff and we three turned again united in purpose, towards the rail. After a few pulls at our jars, Mac and Doug took one of the many regular trips out to the sidewalk to indulge their nicotine habit.

Mac fired up a Winston with his Ronson and commented on Trevor’s recent departure, noting “He can’t put them down like he used to can he?”

Doug grunted a laugh in agreement, lighting his Marlboro from the proffered lighter. “Well, Mac… he’s married and trying to stay that way, certainly it’s not been so long that you’ve forgotten?” Mac produced a brittle laugh in response.

The foot traffic was constant in both directions, it being Saturday and we being in what’s now called the East Village. The demographics of the people passing had certainly changed since the years Doug had lived only a few short blocks away after returning to New York from Eire (yes, brilliant, right - he leaves NY and goes not to London, but Ireland) where he had tried to crack the music business in Dublin and Belfast and spent most of his time eking a living writing pop music criticism for pennies, tending bars or drinking at them. Doug’s own long-suffering patient wife had made the journey over and back with him all the while retaining her patient, pleasant demeanour and her affection for Doug in spite of his several, erm, imperfections, let’s call them. True to Doug’s uncanny sense of (bad) timing, Dublin and the Republic of Ireland were now booming, money was flowing like the Guinness at Hogans and the rest of the world now paid Ireland attention it had never received before. So of course, where was himself now

but back in the Big Apple, which had turned sterile and become yupped-out and expensive all the way from the Spuyten Duyvil down to Battery Park, and from Hell’s Kitchen to Loisaida. “Home sweet home -my ass”, thought Doug.

Jumbo joined them outside as they stood and smoked looking across at the few remaining brownstones on the north side of the block. Jumbo hated cigarettes but enjoyed a different type of smoke inhaling quickly one deep draught then bashing his lit number against the wall and turning back into the bar followed closely by the other two.

The fresh pint of porter stood waiting for Doug and Jumbo’s Bass Ale and Mac’s screwdriver had both been refreshed. Behind their glasses stood three empty shot glasses and barman grinned his evil little smile at them from the other end of the long bar as Doug (keeping his eyes fixed on the amiably malevolent, ginger-headed, pint puller) toasted his pals’ health and prosperity again and it was somewhere about this time he lost track of the time and count of the drinks he’d had, losing himself willingly in the pleasure of the good company that he had often missed when away from the place.

Mac related to them tales of his ex-wife who had mentally gone off the rails spectacularly in spite of his best efforts to help her and continuing this even after they had separated and Jumbo recently married mentioned his wife not at all, but as ever was keen to tell us about some book by minor talents like Banks or T.C. Boil he’d found at the Strand or at Shakespeare & Co. hailing it as “Groundbreaking!” or “Evocative” or “Seminal!” or some other overwrought adjective he liked to apply to books he enjoyed. Mac who followed recent fiction said he too had read it and as usual politely deemed it “All right, I guess”.

Doug too loved books of fiction but had a peculiar bent that he always felt he had missed too many great works from the past and was therefore un-interested in modern or current fiction until he had mastered the masters so-to- speak.

Darkness began to descend on the late summer Manhattan streets and the three stalwarts settled up their tab tipping the beverage banshee at a rate of about 60% for being so free with his boss’ liquor. They turned left out the door following the path Trevor had blazed some hours earlier. At Lafayette Mac bade the others farewell and headed south to catch the F train to Brooklyn and some bars nearer his flat as Doug headed west walking quickly and waving to Jumbo as he grabbed a cab to head uptown.

After a trek which felt like he had done the Rongai route up to the summit of Kilimanjaro but in fact encompassed only 2 avenues and 5 streets of the Manhattan grid on a pleasant late summer evening, Doug spied salvation in the form of the entrance to the PATH train and the promise of transport home.

The PATH train to Hoboken ratcheted and screeched into the sweltering station and Doug increased the pace of his weaving to get as far forward in the train as he could - his only thought was of a restorative nap on the train as it crossed northern NJ.

Hemingway on Fishing

 It has always seemed to me that golf was a game you played if your father or maybe both parents played it.  The same went for fishing or hunting. If your dad fished or hunted chances are he would have at some point in your childhood, woke you up before the crack of dawn, dragged you still groggy into suitable clothes and off to a boat or a stream or the woods for your initiation into the ancient sport (s).


Ernest Hemingway, the celebrated American novelist was an avid lifelong fisherman and hunter introduced to both pursuits by his father Dr. Clarence Hemingway.  Dr. Hemingway's meticulous methods in everything he did were passed on to his son via these pursuits and Ernest in turn later adapted them to his other passion, writing. The family purchased "Windermere" on Walloon Lake in  Upper Michigan as their summer retreat in 1900 and the young Hemingway spent summers there for his entire childhood. The property remains in the family to this day.
Hemingway fished anywhere he lived and he wrote about fishing in Michigan, in the middle of Paris, on the Rhone Canal, in Switzerland, Italy, Bavaria, Spain, Florida, Bimini, Key West, Cuba, Idaho, Wyoming, Canada, and Africa.

Anyone familiar in the very least with Hemingway's most familiar works realizes the depth of his passion. In "The Sun Also Rises" he devotes an entire section on his side trip to the bullfights in Spain to describe trout fishing on the Irati River high up in the Pyrenees. This part of the book is for me the most resonant and enjoyable, more than the love interest, more than the bullfights (another Hemingway passion) more than the prodigious drinking and carousing in Paris, Pamplona or Madrid.

"The gate was up and I sat on one of the squared timbers and watched the smooth apron of water before the rivers tumbled into the fall and was carried down. Before I finished baiting, another trout jumped at the falls making the same lovely arc and disappearing into the water that was thundering down. I did not feel the first trout strike. When I started to pull up I felt that I had one and I brought him, fighting and bending the rod almost double out of the boiling water at the foot of the falls and swung him out onto the dam."

Much like his early story "The Big Two-Hearted River" his descriptions of the surroundings and the river itself put the reader right by his side as he fights to land the trout he loves. This is from that earlier story:
"From where Nick stood he could see deep channels, like ruts, cut in the shallow bed of the stream by the flow of the current. Pebbly where he stood and pebbly and full of boulders beyond; where it curves near the tree roots, the bed of the stream was marly and betweeen the ruts of deep water green weed fronds swung in the current.  Nick swung the rod back over his shoulder and forward...."

Hemingway was introduced to marlin fishing after he returned from Europe in Key West and this drew his love of the Gulf Stream and the fish and the islands in it. From Key West he moved to Bimini to experience life and fishing fully in the Stream. A long passage about a day's fishing with his three fictional sons  shows how deeply he was immersed in a relatively short time. In his ,Islands In The Stream, Hemingway's alter ego's boy "Davy" had hooked a big marlin and was intent on fighting the fish to the end.
"The boy's broad back was arched, the rod bent, the line moved slowly through the water, and the boat moved slowly on the surface, and a quarter mile below the great fish was swimming. The gull left the patch of yellow weed and flew toward the boat. He flew around Thomas Hudson's head while he steered then headed off toward another patch of yellow weed on the water.
"Try to get some on him now" Roger told the boy. "If you can hold him you can get some"
'Put her ahead a touch more," Eddie called to the bridge and Thomas Hudson eased her ahead as softly as he could. Davy lifted and lifted, but the rod only bent and the line only tightened. It was as if he were hooked to a moving anchor."

However it seemed that when he reached Cuba that Hemingway truly found his home. He was writing letters from Cuba on fishing and other subjects from around 1930. These were for publication in Esquire and Harpers and other magazines in the US and Canada.  His passion for fishing echoed those for hunting big game and bird shooting. He learned everything about his prey and showed sympathy, no let's call it devotion or love towards them. His activities led to the beginnings of the IGFA. In "Marlin Off the Morro" and the later "Out in the Stream: A Cuban Letter" he shows his deep contemplation of his prey. He discusses the various types, their colours, their ages, their behaviour in the wild and once hooked. He is willing to do as much work as he can to further the body of knowledge so long as it doesn;t keep him from his drinks dockside and the sale of the fish to the waiting Cubans. Here's an excerpt where he describes the number of marlin taken in 1933:
"As an indication of how plentiful they are, the official report from the Havana markets from the middle of March to the 18th of July this year showed eleven thousand small marlin and one hundred and fifty large marlin were brought into the market by the commercial fishermen of Santa Cruz del Norte, Jaruco, Guanabo, Cojimar, Havana, ....etc"
That's just four months and are the official figures. One can only guess how much never got counted. Hemingway describes the biggest caught at that time:

"...But in July or August it is even money any day you go out that you will hook into a fish from three hundred pounds up. Up means a very long way up. The biggest marlin ever brought into market by a commercial fisherman weighed eleven hundred and seventy-five pounds with head cut off, gutted, tail cut off and flanks cut away: Eleven hundred and seventy-five pounds when on the slab, nothing but the saleable meat ready to be cut into steaks. All right. You tell me. What did he weigh in the water and what did he look like when he jumped?"

US Academy of Natural Scientists, Henry W. Fowler, headed the Gulf Stream Marine Test of 1934–35, and Hemingway, who had become an Academy member in 1929, jumped at the chance to assist.The research project studied the life histories, migrations, and classifications of Atlantic marlin, tuna, and sailfish. In August 1934, Fowler and Hemingway spent a month on Hemingway's boat the Pilar, catching, measuring, and classifying numerous catches. Correspondence between Cadwalader and Hemingway after the trip illustrates that the latter party's assistance enabled Fowler to more accurately classify the marlin of the Atlantic Ocean.

If any of 
this comes as a surprise just remember this is the guy that won the Nobel Prize for the story "The Old Man and the Sea". Papa Hemingway was a fellow that really loved to fish!

Van the Man stories

Right here's a couple of apocryphal Van Morrison stories.

So, a pal of ours is a super Van the Man fan, I mean, loves him to death. Finally after waiting years for the chance, gets tickets to see The Man at The Beacon Theater on Broadway in Manhattan and is over the moon. The evening of the show comes, our pal gets tuned up in anticipation and arrives early and takes his seat. The band comes out vamps for a bit and out comes Van who does the first number for 20 mins then launches straight into 2nd number which goes 10 mins, and same with the 3rd song and as it winds down Van leaves the stage. Show over. No encore, no 4th song, no sorry i've got a pain in me bollix, not quite 40 minutes and finito! It's over.

Our pal is gobsmacked, vexed- literally steam coming out of his ears. He's unable to move for a bit but then goes up the theater into the lobby past the bar full of other dazed punters and instead of using Broadway main egress, he goes out the back fire door, and right there is the limo door open with the driver behind the wheel and Van bolts out the theater and scoots into the back of the limo now followed closelyby our pal intent on mayhem and who launches himself like a Van-seeking-Missile across the pavement into the back of the car grabbing the great star by the lapels while Van's eyes bug out of his head. Fortunately for Van the concert security boys saw this and latched onto our friend's ankles and dragged him out of the limo. Slam goes the car door as the big car tears away from the curb with the still-quivering Belfast Cowboy ensconced in the rear.

Here's another story for ye. When they held the Bob Dylan 30th anniv. fest at Madison Square Garden with George Harrison, Tom Petty, Lou Reed, etc in 1992, they held the after-party @ Tommy Makem's Bar, a long time fixture in NY. My pal Brendan Cregan local Gaelic Football legend and barman, was hired to work the after party at Makem's. He told me Eric (recently sober) Clapton and man-of-the-hour Bob Dylan sat at a table in the restaurant, each picking at a plate of food, and never said a word to each other the entire meal. This, in a bar packed full of the top of the Rock & Roll royalty, celebrating one of their heroes.

Rum diARY

 Today, rum is produced literally all over the world: Africa, Asia & the Pacific, including India the number one consumer of rum in the world, Caribbean, Central and South America, Europe, and North America.

The top 5 rum consuming nations in the world are India, USA, Philippines, France and United Kingdom and the top 5 per capita are Dominican Republic, Philippines, Canada, USA, and France. Of the top 5 countries globally, only France saw a rise in volume sales from 2011 to 2016. The world consumed 1.3 billion litres of rum in the year 2016.

The top 3 brands of rum globally are McDowells (India), Bacardi (Puerto Rico), and Tanduay (Philippines).

Rum is an alcoholic beverage distilled through fermentation from the byproducts of sugarcane such as molasses, or directly from sugarcane juice. In the United States, rum currently generates the third highest sales volume in the U.S. spirit industry, behind vodka and whiskey. As of 2016, consumption of rum in the United States was recorded to have exceeded more than 24 million 9 liter cases. In 2016, the sales volume of rum in the U.S. amounted to about 24.7 million 9 liter cases. There currently are several regional variations and grades of the alcoholic beverage which include: light rum, commonly used in cocktails, "golden" and "dark" rums, as well as premium rums. The latter two are typically consumed straight, with ice, or with mixers and can also be used for cooking. The leading rum brand in the U.S. as of 2016 was Bacardi. Other popular rum brands produced in the U.S. include: Captain Morgan, Malibu, Admiral Nelson (??) and Cruzan Rum. In 2016, Bacardi recorded over 17 million 9 liter cases in volume sales worldwide while Captain Morgan reportedly sold about 10.7 million 9 liter cases in that same year.

United States of America (USA) commercial rum export value amounted to around 65.8 million U.S. dollars in 2016 and the dutiable import volume of rum to the U.S.A. for that same year was approximately 7.6 million U.S. dollars, most of it coming from Mexico, Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad. The majority of the world's rum is produced in Latin America and

in the Caribbean where it plays a part in the culture of most of the West Indian islands.

·

India

There’s a good chance the first spirit distilled from cane sugar was made in India, sometime between 0CE and 500CE. Despite not being exactly world-famous for its rum, India is the biggest consumer of rum in the world, both in terms of rum drunk per capita and in terms of most rum drunk each year. Indian rums are molasses distilled, and dark. They tend to have a sweet nose and taste, with a thicker mouth feel even than other dark rums. Some reviewers recommend it as a before-dinner sipper, like Sherry. It’s also something of a currency: Soldiers in the Indian army still receive a “ration” or rum each week as part of their pay. Best bottles: Old Monk 12 Year and Khukri XXX Rums.

Haiti and Martinique

Both of these island nations have had plenty of weird history for the good and the bad. Both produce a style of rum similar to one another, but unlike rums made anywhere else in the world, Haitian and Martinique rums use a charentaise distillation method -- the same kind used in producing cognacs. A charentaise is a two-stage distillation method, meaning the first batch of distilled spirits is put back through the system to be distilled a second time. The rum is then aged in Limosin Oak Barrels, which gives it more tannin and spice than other oak varieties. The end result is acidic, with spicy notes of ginger and pepper on top of the honey finish. Best Bottles: St. James Fleur de Canne (Martinique) and Rhum Barbancourt (Haiti).

Jamaica

You think of rum mixers like Mai Tais when you think Jamaica and rum, but you’d be thinking wrong. . If you like that slight formaldehyde after-taste in Jamaican beer, you’re already a fan of hogo. Jamaican distilleries get their hogo profile by maintaining a culture of “dunder”, preserved yeast that continues to grow and mutate much like a sourdough batch and carry notes of previous batches into new brews. Best Bottles: Worth Park Single Estate and 98 Appleton Estate 21 Year

Cuba

Until recently, it’s been hard to get Cuban rum, but the lifting of sanctions by President Obama means they’ll probably be available starting this year. Before what we’ll call the Big Pissing Contest, Cuban rums were popular throughout the U.S.A. Their return might be the biggest thing in alcohol legalization since Repeal Day. Cuban rums are a Spanish-style spirit -- clearer, drier, and with a higher proof. This means a crisper mouth-feel and lighter flavors (often of honey or citrus skin). They’re a smooth drink best enjoyed neat or over a single chunk of ice. Fun fact: Cuban rum has been formalized since a royal decree in 1539, which standardized production and built a rum brand before branding was a word people used. Best Bottles: Ron Palma Mulata, Santiago de Cuba Extra Anejo