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Liquor Outlaws
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By Keith B. Hoffman
I
t was January 17, 1920, one day after the
United States outlawed alcohol via the
Prohibition acts and Bill McCoy had an
idea. People still needed booze, and he knew
they’d pay big to get it. Bill ran a tour-boat
business and he travelled around the Bahamas,
an island chain teaming with sugarcane and
rum. Next thing he knew, Bill bought himself the
vessel Tomika, and was navigating a windy dawn
off Montauk, New York, 12 miles straight out to
sea. Bill was going to a random spot of frothy
wet where he expected to unload his 6,000 cases
of rum. As he leaned against the large machine
gun he had secured into the Tomika’s decks, he
scanned the horizon for his “runners”—the small
boats that would take the booty to shore. The
12-mile limit, later known as the “Rum Line”,
was the extent of US Territorial waters, and Bill
was untouchable out there. Those last miles in
were the tricky ones, as law enforcement patrolled
vigorously. No matter, as there was money to
be made, and lots of it. The players included
fishermen on their own boats and a flotilla
of seasick mobsters.
72 GAMBLINGONLINEMAG.CO.UK
This smuggling foxtrot produced an
unintended technology advance in boat velocities.
Each time the government boats got faster, the
rumrunners adapted and built even speedier
boats. Montauk was one of many places the rum,
and various other liquors, came to shore. It was
an ideal location due to its intricate shorelines
and proximity to the many illegal cocktail
houses of New York.
SUGARCANE
The famed Portuguese and Spanish sailors of
the 14th and 15th centuries planted the first
sugarcane in the Canary Islands. Legend has
it that while Portuguese explorers continued
their travels and introduced sugarcane to Brasil,
Christopher Columbus himself was transplanting
cuttings from the Canary Islands to the modern-
day Dominican Republic. These climates were
perfect for growing sugarcane, and sugar
production blossomed.
Europe began a full-fledged love affair
with sweetness and plantations spread like a
fully formed pox over European colonies in the
Caribbean. A by-product of all this sucrose
bliss was colossal vats of molasses. It seemed
like a good idea at the time to ship the molasses
to distilleries in New England, to make rum.
This lead to folks in New England shipping rum
to Africa in exchange for slaves. The booming
sugar plantations needed workers—fast. So slaves
were sent to Brasil and the Caribbean. Hence, that
first shipment of molasses triggered what we now
refer to as the “slavery triangle”.
RUM
Both rum and Cachaça are spirits made from
sugarcane. Cachaça starts life from the sugary
juice that comes from the crushing of sugarcane,
while rum is made from molasses—the vicious,
syrupy mess left over. Rum tastes very different
from Cachaça, and obtains its unique flavour
profile from the minerals and other compounds
found in molasses.
Up until the mid 1800s rum was a dark,
murky brew consumed by the lower classes,
and was concisely described as “hot, hellish and
terrible liquor”. In the late 1850s, the Spanish

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government, in an effort to spur the invention
of a palatable version of rum, sponsored a
competition. The winner tinkered with different
yeasts, fermenting durations, charring of oak
barrels for aging, filtering techniques, etc. Part
of his name should ring a bell—Mr Don Facundo
Bacardí Massó.
As an example of rum production, Bacardi
takes molasses, adds water and ferments for
about 35 hours with a strain of yeast the original
Mr Bacardi began using when the company
was founded. Yes, the same yeast has been kept,
expanded and used, every single year since 1862.
The next step is standard distillation, followed by
purification via charcoal filters. Bacardi then ages
their rum in charred white American oak barrels.
If not left too long to age, the product is “light”
rum, which is actually coloured, by the wood,
during the resting process. Bacardi then filters
twice more and the final product is a clear, highly
mixable light rum.
Many of the deeply coloured and richer rums
are barrel-aged far longer, the finest of which
contain flavour profiles akin to excellent Scotch.
Some of these aged rums are even producing
disciples from the philosophies of Scotch and
Cognac. The Scotch cognoscenti are drawn to the
Jamaican and Guyanan rums due to their pot-still
distillations and barreling techniques. For the
Cognacophile, French islands like Martinique
pride their colonial bloodlines by engineering
a rum robust with brandy implications.
CACHAÇA
Also know as: Pinga, The Evil, The Damned, The
one that killed the policeman, and The water birds
will not drink. Cachaça stands on the bronze
medal step in world booze production. Rum
doesn’t even come close to the podium at 6th
place. Cachaça? This national drink, and liquid
passion of Brasil, is still little known outside her
borders, but, somewhat oddly, holds a lofty place
in German life. Would you have guessed that
Cachaça is the most enjoyed drink after beer in
Germany? Neither would I.
As Cachaça comes from the juice of sugar
cane, it does not contain the flavourful compounds
found in molasses, and hence, is a more neutral
tasting spirit. It is relatively easy to make, and all
across Brasil, from single-stilled shacks to giant
industrial complexes, the swig is incessantly
churned out. An estimate 30,000 producers are
spread across Brasil, and the average citizen
drinks 12 litres ever year. Cachaça is usually
bottled straight away, but some variations are
aged in American oak, or interesting native wood
barrels. A third category is much like the Oro, or
“gold” Tequila mention in a previous GOMmelier
article, as it has added caramel colorants and is
termed “yellow” Cachaça.
Brasilian passion for Pinga is palpable
and found across all layers of society. What
started as a “poor mans” swill has tuned into
an object of immense national pride. Soaring
regional popularity has burdened the Brasilian
government with a “Champagne problem”.
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Much like the French assertion that sparkling
wines of the world cannot be called Champagne
unless produced within the Champagne district,
Brasil is avidly fighting for the name Cachaça to
be limited to sugarcane liquor produced only in
Brasil. Columbia, Paraguay and the Caribbean
do not agree and continue to call their product
Cachaça as well. International lawsuits and trade
negotiations are sticky and ongoing.
Now I, your GOMmelier, pulled an amusing
cultural faux pas in Brasil many years ago with
my first drink of Pinga. I was a young punk being
hosted by one the most gracious and elegant
families in existence, the Garpellis of Laranjal
Paulista. Laranjal is a small, lovely town where
everyone seems to know everyone else and the air
is brimming with good vibes and happiness. It
had been a long time coming for me to meet the
Garpellis and I was unwavering in my quest to
leave a good impression. Unfortunately for me,
I had just inexplicably dyed my hair, for the very
first time, right before the trip. Adding to this was
that I had performed the dye “job” on myself, with
a beguiling permutation of zero adult supervision
and unfathomable confidence. I was sporting a
mop of what only can be termed as a toxic shade
of orange/yellow/squash and appeared as though
I just escaped the gaseous clutches of an industrial
chemical disaster. They graciously chose to look
past this, and tentatively brought me, as an
honoured guest, to their local bar. Continuing
to be an idiot, I did not abide by the number-one
rule of drinking something I knew nothing about:
I did not watch how the locals did it first. When
our order came, the entire bar of 50 or so friends
and neighbours of the Garpellis watched with
fascination, probably glued by my circus dome.
We cheered our beers and everyone reached for
their Pingas. Blam! Slammed mine down in less
that a second. I swear I heard birds chirping in
the Twilight Zone as the rest of the bar was frozen
in time, starring in wonderment. Whoops, one
does not “shoot” Pinga like that, unless one is a
drunkard. Great introduction for me it was not.
The Pinga, however, was splendid. Give me
a Pinga, Vasily. One Pinga only, please.
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