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That Purpose (RUM is distilled)

RUM is distilled from a fermented mixture or wash, of molasses, scummings of boiled cane juice, and dunder, which last named material is the lees left after previous distillations. The whole are mixed up and allowed to ferment for seven or eight days, and when the mixture throws up clear globules, or bubbles, it is fit for distillation. The first distillation produces a spirit called "low wines." To make this into rum of Jamaica proof it is distilled a second time. Twelve hundred gallons of wash produce 530 gallons of low wines, and from these are distilled 220 gallons of proof rum. A third distillation obtains from these 220 gallons about 113 gallons of marketable rum. The best rum is that which is made solely from molasses; but that in the fermentation of which is left the debris of the sugar-cane, froth, et cetera, always retains a sharp, disagreeable acid, and frequently acquires a burnt taste, on which account it is given to the negroes who work in the sugar-houses, and is consequently called negro-rum. If crystallized sugar were fermented by itself, the proluce, when distilled, would be mere spirit of wine, without any of the flavor peculiar to rum. This flavor, therefore, is generated by the acid and other ingredients in the molasses and dunder. The ingredients or constituents are chlorophyll or green coloring matter, butyric (15)