Breweries & Bars
What is the distinction between a New England fashion rum and a Caribbean rum? South Boston’s GrandTen Distilling has revived the previous.
![Caitlin Cunningham](https://bdc2020.o0bc.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/SOJO7ZMIG5FFDHOMRCNA5PH6XA-651302648edcc-768x432.jpg)
GrandTen Distilling opened in South Boston in 2011, however the distillery produces a rum with origins that return means additional than that.
In line with the Medford Historic Society, a model of rum known as “Medford Rum” was produced beginning within the early 1700s. It’s the rum Paul Revere drank on the night of April 18, 1775, earlier than his trip to Lexington to warn that the British had been coming, as cited in Barbara Kerr’s “Glimpses of Medford: Picks from the Historic Register” (Charleston: Historical past Press, 2007). GrandTen Distilling cofounder Matt Nuernberger is conscious of the lore, and likes linking the historical past to his comparatively new beverage.
“The story goes that on his 1775 trip to Lexington, Paul Revere took a detour by means of Medford with a view to keep away from the Redcoats that had been chasing him,” says Nuernberger, referencing the e book. “Because it occurred Isaac Corridor, the Medford distiller, was additionally the captain of the Medford minutemen. Though Revere’s keep was transient, it was lengthy sufficient for Captain Corridor to pour him a number of stirrup cups of wealthy outdated Medford Rum, which ‘would have made a rabbit chunk a bulldog.’”
Medford Rum continued to be produced for greater than 100 years after that well-known midnight trip, however as a result of Prohibition laid principally dormant within the years afterward. GrandTen purchased and launched their very own model of Medford Rum within the spring of 2014.
“There was some extent I feel within the ‘50s and ‘60s that M.S. Walker was making a Medford Rum, after which the model went dormant,” says Nuernberger. “Once we began GrandTen we got down to revive it.”
There are variations between Caribbean rum and the New England fashion the Medford model falls underneath. Whereas Caribbean rum is just not a monolith — the spirit is made otherwise in Puerto Rico than it’s in Jamaica or Barbados — the New England model is usually “thicker and fewer candy than its Caribbean cousin,” in accordance with the New York Instances. Rum manufacturing caught on within the American colonies and peaked in 1770, in accordance with the Instances, when six million gallons of Caribbean molasses had been imported to the American colonies. There’s an unpleasant historical past right here, too, involving the commerce of some New England rum to West Africa in change for slaves bought to the Caribbean.
GrandTen’s Medford Rum follows the New England colonial rum custom taste-wise. Made with blackstrap molasses and wild New England yeast in a copper nonetheless, Medford Rum has flavors of butterscotch or vanilla extra akin to a bourbon than some rums you could be used to.
“It’s just a little bit drier, however I’d say there’s nonetheless a pleasant candy notice to it,” says Nuernberger.
Due to Medford Rum’s whiskey traits, Nuernberger says the spirit goes properly in an Previous Usual cocktail, which GrandTen sells a whole lot of at its South Boston cocktail bar. Different spirits from GrandTen embrace Wire Works Gin and South Boston Irish Whiskey.
Want weekend plans?
The very best occasions within the metropolis, delivered to your inbox.