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“You remember that I asked whether whisky and brandy were in the cabin. You said they were. How many landsmen are there who would drink rum when they could get these other spirits? Yes, I was certain it was a seaman."When you think of brandy, you probably picture a St Bernard (dog) rescuing a man in a snowdrift. When you think of whisky, you perhaps think of ghillies, whatever they are, shooting grouse in their gentlemen’s club. When you think of rum, you probably imagine a Central American peasant lying face down in a ditch, or sailors fighting in Plymouth.
Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure of Black Peter
Rum has an image problem, but they’ve put their top marketing people on it, and are re-launching it as a luxury product, the kind of thing that oil traders and secret agents can drink on their golfing holidays. I was invited to a tasting of Zacapa, the best -or at any rate the most expensive- rum in the world. It is produced 2,300 metres above sea level in the mountains of Guatemala, said their salesman. Well, well.
They gave me the 23-year old Zacapa, with its rich dark flavours, the mystery of the Guatemalan highlands in every sip. Twenty-three years ago Guatemala was having a civil war which left 200,000 dead, but the rum seems to have escaped unscathed, thank God.
Anyway, so I bought a bottle. It was a lot of money, but I am a man who appreciates the finer things in life. I didn’t have much to do next day, so I drank it in my underpants, while playing Mike Tyson’s Super Punch-Out.
