Rum Butter, The Facts
The Rum Story
Words by Christine Robins
an alcoholic beverage made from sugar cane by-products such as molasses and sugar cane juice, by a process of fermentation and distillation.
Rum first came into our general consciousness in the 17th century, It came onto the Cumbrian radar around 1785 when the Jefferson family started using Whitehaven as their base to move rum and molasses around the world and then bringing back the sugar cane from it's Yeaman estate in Antigua. The Jeffersons had at first traded in tobacco as Whitehaven was one of the biggest tobacco ports in the 1600s, but then the American revolution that ended in 1783 scuppered those plans and they had to leave their home town of Virginia. Luckily they also had interests in importing wine and spirits and shipbuilding along with their partners in Cumbria, The Lumley, Kennedy and Co shipbuilding company. They of course worked with them to transport all their goods around the Balearics and the West Indies.
The Jefferson's traded in wine and spirits for over 200 years until they closed in 1998. The Rum Story museum on Lowther Street is set in the original shop, courtyard, cellars and bonded warehouses where the Jefferson family traded from and is a great place to visit and learn about Whitehaven's rum history. They even have a kinetic clock in the courtyard which has a café and shop that are free and open to the public. If you want to know what Kinetic is look it up, I did and am still reeling from all the technical words! Anyway it depicts The Rum Story from the sugar cane growing under the Caribbean sun to the filling and labelling of the bottles. It's a fabulous must see and it goes off every 30 mins.
So after reading this article it will come as no surprise that rum butter originated from Whitehaven. There are many different tales of how it originated but the one I prefer is that some smugglers on the West Cumberland coastline looted the contents of a vessel. After being chased by customs officers they fled to hide in a cave where they were trapped by the incoming tide. They were kept there for a while and so had to survive on their ill-gotten gains, which were of course rum, sugar and butter.
