The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Rum

RUM, a distilled liquor obtained from the fermented juice of the sugar-cane or molasses. Rum owes its flavor to a volatile oil and butyric acid, a fact which has been utilized to prepare a butyric compound called essence of rum to enable the spirit-dealer to manufacture a fictitious rum from malt or molasses spirit. The color is usually imparted after distillation by adding burnt sugar or carmel.