Aaaaaaarrrggggh! It's time for the definitive guide to rum and rhum. Were talking about rum and here at Metrowize were talking about it all night long (Insert sexy moan here).

Rum is the distilled version of either sugar cane or molasses. Sure, we've all seen Bacardi, a Puerto Rican rum which is hugely popular in mojitos and with diet cokes but have you ever delved deeper into your glass and stared arrogantly into that blinding sun that is Rum? Metrowize has and we've lived to tell the tale.

There are two major distinctions to make about rum, first you either see it spelled Rhum or Rum. This is because the spelling indicates which types of distillation process it adheres to. Rhums stand for Rhum Agricole and are distilled to about 72% abv from fresh squeezed sugar cane juice which has been fermented and made exclusively in the once French controlled islands, these are evident in great rhums like Bharbancourt (Haiti) or De Paz (Martinique). It's like a real world version of Sid Meirs Civilization - what you're mixing in your Mai Tai directly relates to French Colonialism and old world Expansion in so many ways that mentioning them just makes us feel like ditching class and shooting dice in a dirty alley.

Rum spelled the normal way adheres to the molasses method and thus is best defined by such expressions as Mount Gay (Barbados) or the ever present Bacardi (Puerto Rico). In rum we find history and Jack Sparrow-esque pirate type shenanigans. See the first distillery set up in America was in 1664 in Staten Island of all places to produce Kill Devil or rum as we affectionately call it. Can we just pause and say what a cool name Kill Devil is? That is so much better then rum, a word who's origins might be traced back to a shortening of the latin word for sugar, Saccharum. But, still Kill Devil, that some John Mclaine type awesome sauce. It was known to cause a fire in the livers of one eyed peg legged pirates and keep them howling for pieces of eight well into the 17th century. Back in the day, water was usually contaminated and the Folsom street fair was yet to be invented so the Buccaneers of yester year needed something that could travel well and still lend them enough courage to dress like war vet version of Axel Rose. Hence, some enterprising Islander made up a solution which pickles our Banana Daiquiris to this very day.

In your rum travels, you might come across different versions of rums, for simplicities sake we will label them as light (being clear) amber (dark but not black) and black (duh) rum. Each color has to do with the levels of molasses, distillation process and overall sex appeal the brand wants to put forth.
Myers is practically the Lex Steele of the black rum world and goes great with some ginger beer and lime making a dark and stormy. On the other hand Amber rums like the aforementioned Ron Zaccapa go well with a couple cubes of ice and a nice cigar. The clear rums lend themselves to mixing and thus you end up with Bahama mama's and the like.

Rum is like singer song writer Meat Loafs Bat out of Hell Album, an epic ballad that needs to brush the dirt of its shoulders, sure its popularity has waned but rum will do anything for love, but it won't do that.